“Earlier we used to collect fish in maunds; now it is in kilograms,” says 35-year-old Muhammad Asif, a Mallah whose family has navigated the waters of the Indus and the Arabian Sea for generations. Standing near the banks of the Indus in Muzaffargarh district, his voice carries the weight of a legacy that is slowly being erased by a climate that no longer remembers the seasons.
“Our forefathers have been doing this for generations. Earlier, the rivers stayed full, and our income was higher. Now the rivers stay dry, and our relatives have fled to urban areas to find jobs because this isn't sustainable anymore. We are still doing it as long as possible. We can't even teach our kids, as we just get the minimum to eat," he added.
The history of the Indus is the history of the Mallah, a community whose identity is woven into the tides of the great river. For centuries, the Indus was more than a waterway, as it was a provider that nurtured the Indus Valley civilisation and other communities to this day. The river was the source that offered food that sustained the subcontinent's oldest settlements.
While Pakistan has long viewed climate change through the lens of sudden disasters like the 2022 floods, the reality is a permanent disruption of the nation’s survival systems. For a country where 60 percent of the population lives in rural areas, and the agriculture sector contributes 21.9 percent to the GDP, these shifting decimals are a matter of life and death. According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2024-25 and recent World Bank assessments, Pakistan remains one of the most climate-vulnerable nations globally, with climate change posing an existential threat to its agriculture and food chain.
In the 2024-25 fiscal year, there was a contraction in major crops like wheat, cotton, and maize. This decline was driven by environmental changes, including early-season heat stress that slashed wheat output by 8.9 percent, equal to 28.98 million tonnes, and untimely monsoon rains that caused cotton production to fall by 30 percent. The World Bank warns that without significant adaptation, such climate-driven shocks could reduce Pakistan's annual GDP by 18 to 20 percent by 2050, trapping millions in a cycle of poverty and food insecurity.
The impact on the food chain is equally severe, as reported by the FAO in early 2026. Frequent disasters, such as the 2025 floods, which caused an estimated Rs 430 billion in damages to the agriculture sector alone, have disrupted supply lines and sent staple prices soaring. Approximately 10 million people in Pakistan are currently facing acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or higher), exacerbated by a 50 to 90 percent increase in flour prices over the past year.
This environmental degradation is compounded by the fact that Pakistan’s glaciers are melting at an accelerated rate, threatening the long-term stability of the Indus Basin, which provides the lifeline for nearly 90 percent of the country's food production.
The 2022 floods alone claimed over one million animals, but the survivors are now battling a slow death from heat stress and fodder scarcity
Along the Makran coast, the sand is no longer just a bed for the tides; it has become a graveyard of salt-crusted shells and bleached coral. In the laboratories of the University of Makran, Dr Imtiaz Kashani, a 35-year-old marine biologist, tracks the collapse from a different vantage point. His research, published in journals like Oceanologia, reveals that the biggest threat to Pakistan’s coastline is not just the heat, but the unpredictable rainfall patterns affecting the Northern Arabian Sea.
“Unpredictable rainfall patterns are critical in the Northern Arabian Sea. Some years it goes beyond average, causing heavy flooding, and some years it goes through periods of scarcity, which not only affect salinity but also temperature and ultimately affect fisheries,” Dr Kashani explains. He notes that rainfall scarcity reduces the nutrient cycle, leading to a decline in phytoplankton diversity, the primary source of oxygen in the water. “Fewer phytoplankton means less oxygen in the water and a broken food chain, making it difficult for fish to thrive.”
Dr Kashani warns that the ecological damage goes deep into the structural hierarchy of the ocean. “When top predators are removed, the entire ecosystem becomes unbalanced. This leads to a reduction in overall fish production and the collapse of marine habitats that smaller species rely on for protection. Simply, it reduces fish production and disturbs marine habitats.”
This imbalance is a failure. The physical consequences are already manifesting in the bodies of the fish themselves. Dr Kashani’s geo-morphometric research has documented that goldstrip ponyfish populations are being morphologically affected by water quality. While the total fish production has not yet plummeted, the biomass is under immense pressure from both environmental shifts and illegal industrial trawlers.
Dr Kashani warns that if current trends continue, the diverse life of the Arabian Sea will be replaced by a few hardy, high-salinity-tolerant species. “If current trends continue, we will be left with ponyfishes, tilapia, milkfish, eel fish, and catfish!” he warns. “These fishes can survive for many years in very low or very high salinity, but temperatures may affect their life cycle and survival,” he warned.
Further inland, the livestock sector, which sustains 14.6 percent of the national GDP, is facing a similar disintegration. For the rural population, livestock is the major means of income, a living bank that provides security against crop failure. When heat kills a cow, it doesn't just impact food, it destroys a family's primary financial asset. The 2022 floods alone claimed over one million animals, but the survivors are now battling a slow death from heat stress and fodder scarcity.
In Basti Chaangra, Muhammad Waseem Akram has spent 15 years in livestock. “From the last five to eight years, the heat has been intense, which makes our animals sick and they die, and we don’t have easy access to doctors for vaccination!” he says. “Half of our livestock died last year due to diseases we don’t even understand,” he added.
The economic math of survival is no longer working for these communities. Muhammad Arif, 50, watches as his income evaporates along with his animals. “A cow used to give 5kg of milk before, and now it gives around 3kg,” he says. “Recently, my animals got sick and died without a cause I could identify. The fodder I got for 1,700 two years ago, I get for 4,500 now.” The very water the animals drink has turned bitter, carrying a chemical taste that signals the contamination of the water table.
To mitigate the projected loss of climate change by 2050, international and local agencies recommend a rapid shift toward climate-smart agriculture, including heat-resistant seeds and high-efficiency drip irrigation
The disruption reaches even the smallest levels of the ecological chain. The Pakistan Agricultural Research Council and recent findings from the Honey Bee Research Institute in Islamabad reveal that honey production has dropped by 15 percent since 2022. The varieties of honey produced in Pakistan have plummeted from 22 to just 11. This decrease is tied directly to the health of the Ziziphus mauritiana, the Beri tree.
“With higher temperatures, this season has been reduced to just one month. If the season is interrupted by rain, the bees have nowhere to go,” Sher Zaman, general secretary of the All Pakistan Beekeeper Exporters and Honey Traders Association, recalls a time when KP’s Karak district was filled with healthy, old trees. “Today, 75 percent of them are gone because of deforestation,” he laments. Without the bloom of the Beri tree, the honeybee populations succumb to heat stress, abandoning their hives or dying from metabolic strain when temperatures rise above 35 degrees Celsius.
The story of Pakistan’s food security is no longer about surviving the next flood or the next drought. It is about a permanent shift from sustenance to a state of constant, precarious survival. As Dr Kashani notes, the impact travels from the primary producer to the tertiary consumer, ultimately affecting the entire nation’s plate. For people like Muhammad Asif, the sea and the rivers were once a source of pride and prosperity. Today, they are a landscape of scarcity where the water is bitter, the heat is lethal, and the silence in the villages is growing louder.
The data confirms the testimonies. According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2024-25, released by the Government of Pakistan's Finance Division, wheat output fell by 8.9 percent to 28.98 million tonnes in FY2025 due to early-season heat stress and post-sowing dry spells, showing the staple of the Pakistani diet is as vulnerable as the fish in the sea.
The country stands at a threshold where every lost bee, every sick cow, and every empty fishing net is a warning. If the current trajectory of climate change and environmental mismanagement continues, the very systems that have fed this land for millennia will be nothing more than memories.
The inertia of climate change shows that stopping this change suddenly is no longer a scientific possibility; however, slowing the rate of change remains our most powerful tool. Every fraction of a degree which is mitigated buys humanity the time needed to adapt. The goal is no longer to keep the world exactly as it was, but to ensure that the world of tomorrow remains hospitable, equitable, and stable enough for civilisation to flourish in its new context.
To mitigate the projected loss of climate change by 2050, international and local agencies recommend a rapid shift toward climate-smart agriculture, including heat-resistant seeds and high-efficiency drip irrigation. Our environment’s recovery depends on systemic reforms like the Living Indus Initiative and weather-indexed insurance to protect the people.
The Living Indus Initiative is particularly important as it addresses the ecological health of the entire Indus Basin, which supports 90 percent of Pakistan's population. By implementing 25 high-impact interventions, it focuses on nature-based solutions like restoring wetlands and expanding mangrove forests to protect coastal areas from rising sea levels.
The Kisan Package and Weather-Indexed Insurance are modern agricultural support initiatives that work together to protect a farmer’s livelihood. The Kisan Package acts as an investment, providing Kisan Cards that offer direct subsidies for high-quality seeds, fertilisers, and interest-free loans, ensuring they have the resources to plant a successful crop. Weather-Indexed Insurance is a safety net which, instead of waiting for a manual inspection of crop damage, uses satellite data to send automatic payouts if rainfall or temperatures hit extreme levels.
These strategies represent a move away from reactive disaster management toward a proactive, resilient future where we acknowledge the changed climate and build our systems to endure it.