Post-Flood Economic Challenges, Resilience and Rehabilitation Strategies: A Quantitative Analysis of Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan

Abstract

The effects of climate change are now becoming more explosive and more frequent across the world, with developing countries having less adaptive capacity to cope with the effects of flooding. Pakistan has been one of the most climate-vulnerable countries and endured catastrophic flood events in 2010 and 2022, but the socioeconomic impacts of these disasters are only partially documented. This study is a crucial effort to fill this gap in the literature by systematically evaluating the economic problems, coping mechanisms, and recovery strategies after the floods of 2022 in Hyderabad District, Sindh, Pakistan, using a quantitative cross-sectional survey design. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 250 households affected by flood events, covering the following areas: demographic characteristics, severity of economic impacts, institutional effectiveness, and community-led strategies and solutions. Descriptive statistics, Likert scale analysis, Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression techniques were used to analyse the relationships between institutional interventions and the economic recovery outcomes. The results show terrible economic effects: 84% of questioned people said their crops were destroyed, 78% had to accept significant income cuts, and 72% had to endure damage to their homes or displacement. The overall level of satisfaction varied from institutions with neutral satisfaction, such as government rehabilitation institutions, moderately effective as political party institutions, to most trusted as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (mean=3.9). Of particular interest, community-led strategies such as indigenous knowledge sharing (mean=4.4) and participatory decision-making (mean=4.3) were the most endorsed strategies. The regression model accounted for 46.2% of the variance in the economic recovery, with the greatest predictors being those of the role of NGOs in training and employment support (β=0.38) and the role of the community in planning (β=0.30). The results of this study show that the key elements of sustainable post-flood rehabilitation include reorientation to community-empowered rehabilitation, incorporation of indigenous knowledge systems, strengthening of grassroots capacity building, and reform of the compensation system so that it is transparent and equitable in distributing the resources. The findings offer empirically based policy recommendations to enhance the climate resilience of flood-prone urban-rural economies of Pakistan.