Unusually heavy monsoon rains and rapidly melting glaciers following a severe heat wave this year has led to historic flooding in Pakistan. In August, the country’s government declared a state of emergency and by the end of that month a third of the country was underwater. Beyond the tragic loss of human life, there has been mass displacement of people and economic damages are estimated to be beyond USD 40 billion. Agriculture is particularly vulnerable to natural disasters, such as floods, enduring both short and long-term consequences, such as harvest and livestock losses, disease outbreaks and the destruction of rural infrastructure and irrigation systems.
Working together, the IAEA and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have been in close consultation with Pakistan’s government, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, and leading national agriculture and veterinarian institutes to develop an emergency support package to assist the country in applying nuclear science to better understand the flood’s impact on soils, crops and the potential spread of animal and zoonotic diseases. The package consists of scientific equipment, reagents and training.
“The flooding in Pakistan is just the latest impact of unmitigated climate change, and while it’s now too late to stop these floods, it’s not too late to stop the situation from getting worse,” said Lee Kheng Heng, Head of the Soil and Water Management and Crop Nutrition Section of the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture. The IAEA, through its technical cooperation programme, has been coordinating the delivery of equipment to measure the physical and chemical properties of the flooded soils such as pH, electrical conductivity and nutrient levels in agricultural soils, while the FAO/IAEA Joint Centre is providing technical expertise to use the equipment.
Floods are impacting farmers’ ability to sow their seeds and prepare the lands for the coming seasons. “Flood waters carry nutrients and sediments, that when deposited on flood plains, can enhance soil fertility. It can also wash them away downstream,” Heng said. “The poor soil aeration in flooded soils can make many soil and plant changes that can adversely influence growth. It’s not yet clear how the Pakistani farmlands will be once the flooding recedes. With nuclear techniques, local experts can measure the situation and look to ways to improve its fertility.”
Pakistan has a long history of working closely with the IAEA. Its Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology has since 1972 been responsible for the introduction of many food and cash crops using plant mutation breeding — a nuclear technique where seed irradiation helps create spontaneous genetic variations for more productive and climate-resilient crops. Through decades of training and partnerships, the country has also developed expertise in measuring soil fertility, but it lacks equipment for dealing with a crisis of this scale.
