Recently I filmed a vast tract of a flat estuary surface. It was at low tide and the sound heard when the boats engine shut, was unusual. Popping sounds, as if a thousand fish had risen to the surface. Fish starved of oxygen, gulping at the surface for air, simultaneously. Koi in an over populated, under-aerated pond do this.
It wasn’t fish, but a gas released from the mud at the bottom of the creek. Lines of bubbles (methane?) were released along paths being traced there. Probably by aquatic life foraging below. The bubbles rose to the surface. They burst with a soft pop, leaving a lingering trough on the oily cohesive surface. There was a percolating stench of rot. The air was distasteful, offensive to breathe. The boat moved through this. I brought my camera close to the water. A few drops splashed on my cheek. I cringed and was grateful for my eye glasses. How the fish and crustaceans survive here is a miracle. But the mudskipper’s do show evidence of ulcers Data
There is the sound and smell of a gas probably methane, escaping the sticky liquid.
Our mega city of Karachi officially houses 20.3 million people, unofficially 25 million and more. Hyderabad district officially hosts 2.4 million and unofficially, we just don’t know. Government of Pakistan census says that together it is almost 22.7 million people. Whatever the actual number, it is a moot point. Because out of the 193 UN registered countries, about 167 (86%) of them have populations less than 23 million people To be clear only
14% of the worlds countries have populations greater than that of just our two cities. The problem is immense. The pressure and responsibility is great
The actual population is our coastal cities (ourselves), produce a lot of waste. 12,000 to 14,000 tons of solid waste every day. (SSWMB). How much ends up in the sea is not known And 420 MGD (million gallons per day) of untreated sewage, effluent, and 80 MGD of untreated industrial waste is poured directly into the shores of Karachi. (The News International) the total number produced is higher.
Just to give perspective:
– About 550, twenty foot long containers of solid loose waste per day can potentially wash into the sea. – Over 4000 swimming pools (25m x 10m) of effluent pours directly into the sea daily.
Polluted Deltic Estuaries
The discarded garbage and bubbling methane has been visible for a while. My earliest photographs of it are from about 20 years ago. The quantum is increasing unfortunately much faster than my /our indignation.
I quote from my writing in: Soliloquies? Existing on Earth, On the Sea – and Samandar Par: “I remember the light, and the patches of dark oil on water at the marina, on Karachi’s Gizri Creek. The high variations in tides during winter, and windless skies allow our discarded waste to float out into sight. Our boat was approaching the dock. A small old boat. Fibreglass, 20 foot long, once a motor sailer, now sans mast or sail. It
puttered on, pushing aside bags, foam, condoms … Our boats keel, tearing the stunning iridescent shimmer of the estuary’s surface. I do remember thinking that at least the tide wasn’t completely low. The surface there, still shimmers in a reflective iridescence. At times almost like crumpled foil. But at this low a tide, and in the winter season, it is pockmarked with bubbles of what seems methane. There is a stench, and it is a blend of aerosolised, organic, and chemical effluent. It percolates and persists because of a lack of dissipating breeze. Our cities’ untreated waste flows unabated into the sea, settles into the mud flats, and deposits all kinds of toxins and medical sharps on Karachi’s shorelines.
This was in the early 2000’s; up to now, in 2025 nothing has changed for the better instead”
“The photograph (at the end of the article) was taken at the marina (Gizri Creek) in 2007. What it contains is disturbing. The beautiful sheen of light is reflected off estuary waters covered with oil and unburnt diesel. The branch that cuts into its surface is coated with layers of mud and refuse. Due to the thick oil, filth keeps getting glued on to it. Successive coatings, like annular rings of a tree trunk, change its character. It has a repulsive feel to it. There is an odour. The barnacles on the rocks seem to be surviving. This is most certainly a testament to the resilience of nature. The coated water surface is bubbling, almost mimicking the texture of the barnacles. There is the sound and smell of a gas probably methane, escaping the sticky liquid. This is not an image visible every day. But it is seen often enough for the question to be asked, “Why at all?” It does, however, exist every day, and when the wind pushes the visible away into the mangroves, leeward, out of sight, the surface water seems to be clean. The reality is that we have polluted and exploited the oceans to a point where its ecosystem is adjusting. This correction requires a change in the life forms that live within and by the oceans. Including us.
Over the years that I have spent with the ocean, sailing on it and diving below its surface, the signs of pollution have become increasingly visible. Once pristine reefs started showing trailing ribbons of plastic bags, glinting with soda bottles, and the then occasional, now increasing aluminium cans. At this point, the largest buildup has been of course plastic bags. We would dive at a further reef the next season, and still further, the next.”
Impact on the Eastern Delta
Karachi has what is called a longshore drift. It flows towards the east. When the monsoons arrive, the winds pick up in intensity, and blow onto land from the southwest towards the northeast. This is important. The winds blowing diagonally onto the shore push waves at an angle to it. The waves loosen sand and carry it upwards, angularly. The water from waves return to the sea perpendicularly. They carry the sand back with it. A zig-zag pattern of sideward movement is formed. The sand, particulates, waste-solids, and effluent flow eastward.
East of Karachi is also where the incredible delta of the river Indus lies. This is where the nurseries of marine life exist. We throw effluent and solid waste into the sea. The longshore drift carries it eastward, towards the delta. The untreated, discarded chemical and organic toxins settle into the sand banks and mudflats. A persistent toxic mix of sand and sludge remains. Marine life born here suffers. It eats and absorbs harmful organic matter and chemicals. Shrimps, crabs, fish feed off this waste. The food chain is compromised and productive fisheries are harmed. The long term consequences are clear But this doesn’t need to be so.
Effluent treatment plants and solid waste management are needed. Examples of successful interventions and mitigation methods of cleaning harbours are available. Sydney, Singapore, Shanghai, Seoul, are just some examples. Affordable locally designed and engineered solutions need to be created by Pakistani engineers. It is possible. Very capable Pakistani experts do exist.
Impact on People – Us
What impact does the present population explosion have on natural ecologies? What does the excessively increasing production of waste and its accumulation, do to the quality of water, land and food? How does non sustainable human progress, enterprise and industry, effect ecosystems? What is its cumulative impact on climate change? This can be seen very clearly.
What is its impact on a societies and individuals psychological-emotional quality of existence? That too is visible, and is palpable. But what mitigating responses exist? The scale of the problem needs to be understood. At least the discussion on this is prevalent and echoing. But who is hearing, looking, listening?
We have been aware of the looming impact of global warming for a while. In the 1960’s and 70’s scientists were warning us. I remember this as a young student. No one took action, few listened. Perhaps because it was to happen ‘many decades’ later. Today, in 2025, the predicted has arrived earlier. There have already been profound changes in climate, ecosystems, and biodiversity. Its impact has also changed our own perceived relationship between Man and Nature. We are seeing this play out in this present.
The damage caused by our enterprises, neo-colonial economic systems of exploitation, anti-sustainability, maximum profit centric projects is painfully visible.
I recall clearly seas, when schools of fish were large and plentiful. When at sunset, surmais (mackerels) would dance, bursting out of the waters surface. Those days the seas were clean, skies were clear. Nostalgic words, but yes, at that time the clouds were punctuated by silhouette’s of so many birds, moving on paths known by them through genetic memories.
Outfall of pollution did exist then too, but so did pristine islands and ecosystems. At the age of 8, my deeply imbedded dream was to live on a pristine, pollution untouched island in warm seas.
My life has been spent connected to the sea and the natural world. Today at 64, I am sad to also stand as witness, to the continuing destruction wrought by my own species. All in the name of progress and commerce.
I think I was 9 when I remember being irritated on having to squeeze toothpaste out of a plastic tube, not a tube made from recyclable, or degradable metal. Ongoing pollution is still with us, and those islands do not exist anymore the plastic toothpaste tubes do. Even the ones I used 55 years ago. That consciousness of a conscience also persists
In 2025, so much has changed for the worse. It has happened earlier than I had anticipated, or ever imagined. But perhaps naively, I do still believe, that all is not lost … Awareness of our actions is needed. It is imperative that we need to not just hear but listen with attentive cognition. Incorrect decisions made in the past, or even the ones made in the present can be rectified … To a degree. The correct response needs to be for our sustainable presence on this planet. We are the Homo sapiens, the wise and knowing human.
Are we? We do have the ability to be so but
The sea teaches us that to make passage, to move forward on a directed, self selected path, one has to continuously adjust course. One needs propulsion that we can control, and a rudder that we can use to adjust our direction, our bearing. To be able to choose the road we take and to pick the direction we move, is the root requirement of self determination. As long as humanity has their hand on the rudder of their own destiny then perhaps we, our society, our cultures have hope but will we ?
The writer is an architect as well as an environmentalist