The much-anticipated monsoon is making its presence felt across large parts of Pakistan. An excess of rain in the monsoon in 2016 has already been predicted. The ongoing spell of heavy monsoon rains is posing a threat to flood prone districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. According to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), some of the districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including Charsadda, Mardan, Chitral, Lower and Upper Dir, Shangla, Swat and Nowsehra could experience heavy flooding. Last year, torrential rains and flash floods had played havoc with life and property in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB). Most of the damage was caused by landslides and incidents of roof collapse due to flash floods caused by heavy rains. Therefore, concerned departments must be prepared to minimise the losses of expected high floods in the country. Awareness must be created among families settled near rivers prone to experience floods. For this purpose every means of communication including radio, TV and even mosques should be utilised to warn people against the possible danger of monsoon rains. The infrastructure of the areas that are susceptible to flooding, like those along the rivers, should be reinforced and made resistant to heavy rainfall and inundation. Otherwise, the exorbitant costs of rebuilding the damaged roads, bridges and buildings would keep adding up, and there would be an endless cycle of rebuilding towns and villages, only to have them demolished and inundated every year. The fact is that each year people are forced to rely on last minute, emergency relief operations, which is a glaring administrative failure of the state. Because floods in the wake of changed weather patterns have become a permanent annual issue in Pakistan, and are only threatening to get worse due to global warming and the subsequent melting of glaciers in the peaks of the north, long-term measures need to be taken to enable the irrigation system of Pakistan to handle the increased water flow. Existing unds and dykes need to be strengthened, more reservoirs and dams need to be built and the capacity of the existing dams, which is greatly diminished due to siltation, needs to be bolstered. Nobody can stop flash floods from playing havoc but there is a need to scale down losses. It is imperative to take precautionary measures such as discouraging deforestation, removal of encroachments on riverbeds and building of houses that can sustain changing weather and its aftermath in susceptible areas. It is foolhardy of the state to not prepare for floods before they hit, and then scramble to rebuild and evacuate the affected families. There is a need of taking precautionary measures to ward off these threats with better preparation. Amid growing evidence that climate change is having wide-ranging global impacts that will worsen in the years ahead, different countries are planning to better utilise and manage their water resources. A persistent change in weather patterns has made flash floods a global issue, while many developing countries in Asia are still ill-equipped to deal with these catastrophes. Innovative thinking and planning in advance are keys to deterring these climate-related miseries. The weather patterns in Pakistan are still relatively predictable; a huge amount of rainwater is received every year but no reservoir or innovative methods are applied to store this water that goes waste. This is the reason that Pakistan’s water storage capacity is less than 30 days. It is about time that proper measures were taken to deal with the effects and aftereffects of natural phenomenon that are maximised because of shoddy and piecemeal human strategies. *