Flood Disasters and Land Use Planning in Swat Valley, Eastern Hindu Kush

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the flood disasters and effectiveness of land use planning and enforcement in Swat Valley, eastern Hindu Kush, north Pakistan. In Swat Valley, flooding is a recurrently occurring phenomenon. In upper reaches flash flood characteristics dominate, while downstream Madyan river flooding dominates the scene. Downstream Madyan, Swat River enters into a wide basin and braided into numerous channels. The meandering river is frequently changing its course. In Swat Valley, almost every year in summer, the peak discharge overflows the natural levees and in effect causes damages to scarce agricultural land, housing, and other sectors. While in certain areas, deep riverbank erosion is very active and engulfing the farmland and built-up areas. Primarily, the active floodplain of Swat River was a vast grazing land, but with passage of time, the increasing population has used it for cultivation and other developments without taking into consideration risk of floods. This in turn has enhanced the flood vulnerability to various developments. For centuries people lived within the valley of Swat River with the reality of flooding as a natural hazard and with the fact that it has a potential to cause damages to people and their belongings, but so for no attention has been given to land use regulation and zoning. Land use regulations have been widely used as a non-structural flood mitigation strategy in reducing exposure of people and their property. It was found from the analysis that frequent human encroachments onto the flood channel and absence of land use regulations have been identified as the major factors responsible for heavy flood losses. Looking into potential and challenges in land use planning, this is high time to undertake fluvial morphology and rainfall-runoff model for flood risk assessment and spatial land use planning.