Thatta, Pakistan – On a sunny afternoon at Dando Jetty, a small fishing village in Pakistan’s vast Indus Delta, one boat is being unloaded while another prepares to set sail for the Arabian Sea. The melodious voice of Sindhi folk singer Fouzia Soomro echoes from a loudspeaker on a nearby parked boat.
Located about 130 kilometers (81 miles) from Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, Dando Jetty lies on the bank of Khobar Creek, one of the two remaining creeks of the Indus River in Thatta, a coastal district in eastern Sindh province.
“This creek should have freshwater flowing into the sea,” Zahid Sakani tells Al Jazeera as he boards a boat to visit his ancestral village, Haji Qadir Bux Sakani, in Kharo Chan, a sub-district of Thatta, three hours away. “Instead, it’s seawater.”
Six years ago, Sakani, 45, was a farmer. But his land, along with the rest of his village, was swallowed by the sea, forcing him to migrate to Baghan, 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Dando Jetty, and switch to tailoring for survival.
Today, the Kharo Chan port appears deserted – no people in sight, stray dogs roam freely, and abandoned boats outnumber those still in use. Sakani occasionally visits Kharo Chan to pay respects at the graves of his father and ancestors.
“We cultivated 200 acres [81 hectares] of land and raised livestock here,” Sakani said, standing at the port. “But all were lost to the sea.”
Kharo Chan was once a thriving area with 42 villages, but only three remain today. The rest have been submerged, displacing thousands who migrated to other villages or Karachi. According to government data, Kharo Chan’s population dropped from 26,000 in 1988 to 11,403 in 2023.
This fate is not unique to Kharo Chan. Over the past decade, dozens of villages in the Indus Delta have vanished, swallowed by the advancing sea.
A New Threat: Canal Projects
Amid an already fragile ecosystem, a new threat has emerged. Under the Green Pakistan Initiative, the government aims to secure $6 billion in investment from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain over the next three to five years for corporate farming. The plan is to cultivate 1.5 million acres (600,000 hectares) of barren land and mechanize 50 million acres (20 million hectares) of existing farmland.
The project involves constructing six canals – two each in Sindh, Balochistan, and Punjab. Five will be on the Indus River, while the sixth will run along the Sutlej River to irrigate the Cholistan Desert in Punjab.
However, the Sutlej’s waters primarily belong to India under the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, a World Bank-brokered agreement. Though the Sutlej brings water to Pakistan during India’s monsoon season, Cholistan has historically relied on rainfall for irrigation.
“They plan to divert water from the Indus to the Sutlej via the Chenab and then to the Cholistan canal,” said Obhayo Khushuk, a former irrigation engineer. “You cannot build a new irrigation system dependent on monsoon floodwater.”
Corporate farming has already begun in Cholistan under the initiative, with authorities approving 4,121 cusecs of water to irrigate 0.6 million acres (24,000 hectares) of land – an area larger than Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city.
Mohammad Ehsan Leghari, Sindh’s representative in the Indus River System Authority (IRSA), opposed the move, citing chronic water shortages. “From 1999 to 2024, Pakistan has faced water shortages every year, with Sindh and Balochistan experiencing up to 50% scarcity in summer. Where will the water for these canals come from?” he asked.
Sindh’s government criticized the project in a letter to the Council of Common Interest (CCI), stating that IRSA has no authority to certify water availability. Sindh’s Irrigation Minister Jam Khan Shoro warned that the Cholistan canal would “turn Sindh barren.” Federal Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal dismissed these concerns as “baseless,” claiming the new canals would not affect Sindh’s water share.
Hassan Abbas, an Islamabad-based water and environment consultant, called the Cholistan canal “unscientific,” noting that canals require even terrain, not the sand dunes of Cholistan. “Water doesn’t know how to climb a sand dune,” he said.
The Delta’s Destruction
The Indus River, which has flowed for thousands of years, once nurtured one of the earliest human civilizations. However, British colonial engineering, including dams and canals, disrupted its course. Post-independence, successive governments continued these policies, leading to the destruction of the Indus Delta, the world’s fifth-largest.
“A delta is made of sand, silt, and water. Its destruction began in 1850 when the British built a canal network,” Abbas told Al Jazeera. “Every canal built since has contributed to its decline.”
A 2019 study by the US-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water found that the Indus Delta shrank from 13,900 square kilometers (5,367 sq miles) in 1833 to just 1,067 sq km (412 sq miles) in 2018 – a 92% reduction.
“A delta is like an open hand, and its creeks are its fingers,” Sakani said. “The space between those fingers is home to millions of people, animals, and creatures, but it’s rapidly shrinking.”
As land degradation worsened, residents were forced to migrate upstream. Those who remained switched from farming to fishing. Sidique Katiar, 55, a resident of Haji Yousif Katiar village near Dando Jetty, became a fisherman 15 years ago.
“I remember when only a few boats were in our village. Now, every household has boats, and the number of fisherfolk is growing,” he told Al Jazeera.
Loss of Livelihood
At Sanhiri Creek, a seven-hour boat journey from Dando Jetty, makeshift huts house “fishing laborers.” Nathi Mallah, 50, from Joho village in Thatta’s Keti Bandar area, is one of them. She uses a small iron rod to catch “maroarri” (razor shells), which are exported to China.
Mallah works with her husband and six children, who do not attend school, to collect 8-10kg of maroarri daily, earning enough to survive. She entered this business five years ago when fishing in Joho became unprofitable.
Muhammad Sadique Mallah, Nathi’s husband, said increasing land degradation forced people to switch from farming to fishing. “There are more fishermen on the sea now than in my youth,” the 55-year-old told Al Jazeera.
A 2019 World Bank report stated that fish catches in the Indus Delta plummeted from 5,000 tonnes annually in 1951 to just 300 tonnes today, resulting in Pakistan losing $2 billion annually.
“There was a time when men would go to sea and return in 10 days,” said Nathi. “Now they don’t come back even after a month.”
No Water for Crops
Allah Bux Kalmati, 60, cultivates tomatoes, chilies, vegetables, and betel leaves in Dando Jetty. He says freshwater is only available during the monsoon season, but his betel-leaf garden requires water every two weeks. “It has now been a month, and there’s no water for the plants,” he said.
Under the 1991 Water Apportionment Accord (WAA), at least 10 million acre-feet (MAF) of water must be discharged annually downstream of the Kotri Barrage for the delta’s ecosystem. However, the International Union for Conservation of Nature recommended 27MAF annually – a goal never achieved. IRSA data shows water flow was less than 10MAF in 12 of the past 25 years due to diversions.
“Ten MAF is not enough for the Indus Delta,” Abbas said. “It needs 180-200MAF annually to survive, but dams and barrages have caused water shortages.”
Mahmood Nawaz Shah, president of a growers’ association in Sindh, said Pakistan’s irrigation system is outdated. “Our grain production is 130 grams per cubic meter, compared to 390 grams in India,” he said.
Shah stressed the need to fix the existing water network rather than expanding it. “Pakistan uses 90% of its water in agriculture, while the global maximum is 75%,” he said. “We need to learn how to save water and increase productivity.”
A Dire Future
Back at Dando Jetty, Sakani returned from visiting his ancestral village in Kharo Chan. He wanted to buy fresh fish, but no boats had arrived from the sea that day.
“There was a time when we would distribute palla [hilsa herring] among beggars,” he said. “Now, we can’t even get fish here.”
Meanwhile, the high tide makes Khobar Creek resemble the sea, now just 7-8 kilometers (4-5 miles) from Baghan, Sakani’s new home.
“The sea was 14-15 kilometers [8-9 miles] away when we moved here from Kharo Chan,” he told Al Jazeera. “If freshwater doesn’t flow downstream, the sea will keep eroding the land, and in 15 years, Baghan will also perish. We’ll have to move again.
“More canals and dams will completely block the flow of water into the sea. It will be the final nail in the coffin of the Indus Delta.”
For the latest updates and more news, be sure to visit ZTC News and ZNews Today.