Seawater Intrusion: Land Degradation and Food Insecurity Among Coastal Communities of Sindh, Pakistan

Abstract

For this research data have been collected from District Badin, which is recognized as one of the coastal district of Sindh (Pakistan). This research was aimed to overview infrastructural damages; socioeconomic profile of local population and challenges faced by food insecurity mainly caused by seawater intrusion in district Badin, Sindh province of Pakistan. The data has been collected through structured questionnaire survey and interviews from 400 respondents. The finding reveled that majority of the respondents were illiterate and lived in wood made houses (Jhompra) with about six children, which portrays a typical poor rural life in the studied areas of the selected district. As far as economic activities of the respondents is concerned, the majority of the local people were engaged in the agriculture followed by fishing, livestock keeping and wage laborers, etc. Furthermore, the respondents were facing issues regarding cyclones, seawater intrusion, unavailability of basic amenities in their surroundings, like hospitals, electricity, roads, schools, etc. The previous literature evident that the reduction in downstream flow had differential impacts on the various segments of coastal society, like the agricultural lands have adversely been affected due to the accelerated seawater intrusion that has not only turned cultivated lands in to barren, but severely impinged on food grain crops in the region. These changes in the coastal zone had forced the farmers to switch to livestock herding and fishing as an alternative source of employment and income, despite of this, there was no proper alternative measures have been taken by the government. Therefore, through this study it is recommended that there is need to mobilize the proximities (geographical and organized) to insure livelihood of the coastal communities.