- Originele uitgave
- Vorige aflevering S01E1480 - Which way do you hear this audio illusion?…
- Aantal S01E1481
-
Externe links
YouTube-bestand
-
Laatste update
25 juillet 2023 - 17:33
op 11 databases -
The disastrous redesign of Pakistan’s rivers
British colonizers created a massive canal system in Pakistan — and helped cause the country’s deadly water crisis.
Subscribe and turn on notifications ? so you don't miss any videos: http://goo.gl/0bsAjO
In late summer of 2022, Pakistan experienced a devastating flooding event. An unusually severe monsoon season induced by climate change resulted in a third of the country being covered with water. Over 1,600 lives were lost, and water took months to drain out of lower-lying regions of the country, causing disease and displacement.
On the flip side, Pakistan is among the most water-scarce countries in the world — expected to reach absolute water scarcity by 2025 if nothing changes. You can’t remove climate change from this equation, but an overlooked factor is the role that British engineering played in building water infrastructure along the Indus River and its tributaries, Pakistan’s sole source of surface water.
A series of perennial canals, dam-like structures called barrages, and embankments were built to extract as much water from the Indus as possible and convert much of Pakistan’s arid landscape into farmland. But this water infrastructure exacerbates the destruction of flooding events and creates a hierarchical system along the canals in terms of water access.
In our video, we explain the design of this water infrastructure and how Pakistan’s colonial past has made the country’s relationship with water even more precarious.
Daanish Mustafa, who we interviewed for this video, co-authored a report on Pakistan’s water crisis:
https://www.usip.org/publications/2017/04/contested-waters-subnational-scale-water-conflict-pakistan
We recommend The Juggernaut’s reporting on the legacy of dams in Pakistan:
https://www.thejuggernaut.com/pakistan-floods-dams-british-raj-colonialism
For more context on how Pakistan bears the brunt of the effects of climate change:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/10/pakistan-flood-cop27-climate-change/671664/
We interview David Gilmartin for this story, who authored a book on the history of water engineering in the Indus basin:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/blood-and-water-the-indus-river-basin-in-modern-history-david-gilmartin/6562597?ean=9780520355538
Make sure you never miss behind the scenes content in the Vox Video newsletter, sign up here: http://vox.com/video-newsletter
Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com
Support Vox's reporting with a one-time or recurring contribution: http://vox.com/contribute-now
Shop the Vox merch store: http://vox.com/store
Watch our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/IZONyE
Follow Vox on Facebook: http://facebook.com/vox
Follow Vox on Twitter: http://twitter.com/voxdotcom
Follow Vox on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@voxdotcom
Afleveringen (1595)
Soortgelijke serie (10)
Explained
