# Damages caused by climate change

Climate change is a serious challenge for Pakistan. According to the Global Climate Risk Index 2019, Pakistan was the country 8<sup>th</sup> most affected in the world by climate-related events between 1998 and 2017, experiencing 145 events over this time period (Kreft et al. 2018).

Pakistan faces three main economic challenges from climate change: increased variability in rain fall leading to water shortages, flooding, and drought; decreased agricultural productivity as temperatures rise; and a decrease in worker productivity as temperatures rise (Young et al. 2019; Asgary, Anjum, and Azimi 2012; Moore and Diaz 2015).<sup>4</sup> Additional types of damages exist, but few data are available (see Section 5).

Agriculture in Pakistan is still the primary source of employment and the primary user of water. Agricultural water use is highly dependent on irrigation in otherwise arid and semi-arid areas through the Indus Basin Irrigation System. Water use in agriculture is inefficient due to the absence of water monitoring and an incomplete water pricing system (World Bank 2018b). With demand from other sectors (municipalities and industry) rapidly growing and current withdrawal levels nearing 60 percent of renewable water supply, misallocation of water resources and resulting supply gaps are already a risk (Young et al. 2019). Climate change is expected to exacerbate this by increasing total water demand by between 16 and 42 percent by 2050 (World Bank, 2019). Water availability is also expected to become more variable, given enhanced glacier melt and more erratic precipitation patterns, which poses risks for the agricultural sector due to limited buffer capacity in the irrigation system.

Agriculture in Pakistan will also be affected as climate change directly impacts land fertility, crop failure rates and livestock productivity.<sup>5</sup> While rising temperatures could lead to minor yield improvements in the north by extending the growing period, the yield of staple crops, such as wheat, maize, or rice, which are predominantly grown in the south, are projected to decrease by up to 20 percent insecurity (compared with a baseline without climate change), resulting in higher food prices and increased food. Livestock production is predicted to decline by 30 percent (relative to baseline), in part because rangelands will become increasingly stressed by longer droughts (UNDP 2017). Salinization of land and aquifers threatens the fertile Indus Delta and sea level rise will aggravate this situation, further contributing to land degradation and loss of fertile soil (Giosan et al. 2014; K. M. Salik et al. 2015).

The third dimension of Pakistan’s vulnerability to climate change is exposure to hydrological and meteorological hazards, including storms, floods, heatwaves and droughts. On average, 3 million people are affected by natural catastrophes every year, with floods being the dominant hazard (77 percent of the people affected), followed by droughts (14 percent). The recurring flood events during 2010-14 alone resulted in monetary losses of over US$18 billion (Government of Pakistan 2016). As the cryosphere (snow and ice cover) in the mountainous areas is retreating and sea levels are rising due to climate change, the risk of flooding is increasing. Other extreme events which are likely to become more prevalent include heatwaves and droughts. For instance, the unprecedented 2015 heatwave in Karachi took the lives of over 1,200 people (MOCC Pakistan 2015).

> 4 Other challenges related to climate change include coastal erosion (Kanwal et al. 2020), and forest management (World Bank 2018a). These are not modeled in this paper.

> 5 For a review of climate change impacts on agriculture, see (UNDP 2017; World Bank 2016).

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