At a worn-down tea shop under a fading tree canopy in Jhang Katiar village, Ghulam Ali, sits in silence, his fingers endlessly scratching his skin. “I haven’t slept peacefully since 1998 ,” says the 63-year-old, eyes hollow from years of chronic itching. “The water here is cursed.”
His story is not unique—it’s symptomatic of a deeper crisis swallowing Sindh’s coastal belt. Across Thatta and Badin, once-fertile lands are vanishing into the sea, groundwater is turning brackish, and whole communities are battling waterborne diseases in silence.
Thatta and Badin—two districts once synonymous with rice fields, fish harvests, and coconut groves—are now ground zero for one of Pakistan’s worst climate emergencies: seawater intrusion. An estimated 2.4 million acres of land have been inundated by the encroaching Arabian Sea. In Jati taluka alone, 13 out of 133 dehs and 405,000 acres—nearly half the land—are now under water. Towns like Keti Bandar and Kharo Chan have lost more than 50% of their land, and what remains is heavily salinized.
This disaster is not sudden. It is the slow, lethal byproduct of rising sea levels, climate change, and an upstream water theft that Sindh has protested for decades. The once-mighty Indus River now reaches its delta gasping, if at all.
According to the Sindh Irrigation Department, the province’s legal share under the 1991 Water Accord is 48.76 million acre-feet (MAF) annually. Yet, from 2001 to 2020, only 13 MAF flowed downstream to Kotri—a staggering 187 MAF shortfall. Environmentalists argue that even the agreed 10 MAF minimum flow isn’t enough. The IUCN recommends 27 MAF to preserve delta ecology.
Upstream, Jinnah, Chashma, and Taunsa barrages in Punjab divert massive volumes of water daily for agricultural needs. “This is not just mismanagement—it’s ecological negligence,” says veteran water expert Idrees Rajput. “When glaciers melt, and the river is blocked up north, the lower Indus basin—home to the delta—dies slowly.”
According to a 2016 study by the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), 87% of coastal water samples in Thatta and Badin were unsafe for human consumption. Residents like Akhtar Ali, also from Jhang Katiar, recount spending everything they have on treating relentless skin infections caused by saline water. “Doctors say, stop using it. But what else can we do?” he asks. “Even our hand pumps give us poison now.”
The Indus Delta, once sprawling across 3,000 sq km, is now reduced to just 250 sq km. Mangrove forests, vital for defending against storm surges and seawater intrusion, are rapidly degrading. Without their natural shield, the salt marches further inland.
Environmentalist Nasir Panhwar warns that if freshwater flows don’t resume, Karachi itself could be under threat by 2060, following the fate of Sokhi Bunder and Kharochhan, villages already swallowed by the sea.
The damage goes far beyond health. Agriculture has collapsed. Fisheries are in freefall. And traditional livelihoods are vanishing. 80% of coastal residents lack access to safe water. Families are migrating inland, leaving behind the graves of ancestors and the homes of generations.
The fate of the Indus Delta is a stark warning—what happens when climate change meets human neglect. What is unfolding in Sindh’s coastal belt is a humanitarian and ecological emergency. If the government fails to act now, not only will Thatta and Badin disappear from the map, but a civilizational cradle will be lost forever.
Ghulam Ali’s village may be small. But his story is the story of millions. And time is running out.