Islamabad’s recurring flash floods are being driven by decades of unenforced planning rather than by exceptional rain, with the capital’s watercourses narrowed from 40-100 feet to as little as 18 feet (Dawn).
What was not done
The Capital Development Authority is accused of failing to implement Islamabad’s 1960 master plan. Specifically:
– allowing private housing societies to squeeze nullahs from their original 40-100 feet down to 18 feet – permitting construction inside nullah rights of way – never acquiring the land for the proposed Lohi Bher lake and dam in the low-lying areas it was meant to protect – converting green zones to residential use through amendments in the 1990s
Tree cover fell by 14 hectares between 2001 and 2025.
Where it floods
Sector E-11, Park Road near Comsats, Ghauri Town, and sectors D-12 and the I series.
The rainfall that triggered the latest flooding was 150mm. In 2021, flooding in E-11 killed a mother and her child.
The satellite record
Images from 2005 and 2026 show the Gumrah Kas nullah converted from a meandering natural channel to a straight one, with construction along its length. That is the mechanism in a single picture: a stream that could spread and slow has been turned into a chute.
What the CDA says
Chairman Sohail Ashraf did not dispute the account. “I can’t say anything about what happened in the past,” he said. “I would just say that crisis creates an opportunity.”
The thing worth noticing
Islamabad is Pakistan’s planned city. It was drawn from nothing in 1960 by Constantinos Doxiadis with the drainage mapped in advance, and it is the one place in the country where the excuse of organic, unplanned growth is unavailable.
The nullahs were not built over because nobody knew where they were. They were built over because the plan that recorded them was not enforced against the people building.
[Image: via Dawn.]
