Pakistan’s Indus River delta is shrinking and sinking, threatening local communities and their way of life.

 Salt crusts crunch under Habibullah Khatti’s feet as he walks to say a final goodbye at his mother’s grave before leaving his drying-up island village in Pakistan’s Indus delta.

Rising seawater has flooded the delta — where the Indus River meets the Arabian Sea — destroying farming and fishing communities.

“The salty water surrounds us on all sides,” Khatti said from Abdullah Mirbahar village, about 15 km from where the river meets the sea.

As fish disappeared, Khatti switched to tailoring, but that became impossible too. Now, only four of the 150 families still live there.

“At night, the village falls silent,” he said, as stray dogs roam the empty wooden and bamboo homes.

Kharo Chan, once home to about 40 villages, has mostly vanished under the rising sea.

The population dropped from 26,000 in 1981 to 11,000 in 2023.

Khatti plans to move his family to Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city, where many people from the delta are relocating.

The Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum estimates tens of thousands have been forced to leave the delta’s coastal areas.

A recent study says over 1.2 million people have been displaced from the whole Indus delta region in the past 20 years.

Water flow into the delta has fallen by 80% since the 1950s because of dams, irrigation canals, and climate change reducing glacier melt.

This has caused seawater to creep inland, making the water saltier by about 70% since 1990.

Saltwater makes farming impossible and has damaged shrimp and crab populations.

“The delta is shrinking and sinking,” said local WWF conservationist Muhammad Ali Anjum.

The Indus River starts in Tibet, flows through Kashmir, and then across Pakistan, watering about 80% of the country’s farmland.

The delta was once fertile, rich in fish, mangroves, and wildlife.

But over 16% of the farmland there is now ruined by saltwater, according to a 2019 government study.

In Keti Bandar, a town near the water, salt crystals cover the ground.

People bring fresh water from far away by boat and donkey.

“Who leaves their home if they don’t have to?” said Haji Karam Jat, whose house was swallowed by the sea. He rebuilt further inland, expecting more families to move too.

Colonial rulers first changed the river’s flow with canals and dams, followed by many hydropower projects.

Recently, farmers protested and stopped some military-led canal projects in Sindh province.

To protect the delta, Pakistan and the UN started the “Living Indus Initiative” in 2021, which works to restore soil health, protect farming, and save ecosystems.

Sindh’s government is also restoring mangrove forests, which help block salty water.

But while some mangroves are saved, others are being cut down for land development.

India, Pakistan’s neighbor, canceled a 1960 water treaty that divided control of the Indus rivers, and threatens to build dams upstream, reducing water flow to Pakistan. Pakistan calls this an “act of war.”

Communities in the delta have lost more than land — they have lost their way of life.

Climate activist Fatima Majeed, working with fishing communities, said many women who once made fishing nets and packed catches now struggle to find work after moving to cities.

“We haven’t just lost our land, we’ve lost our culture.”