Are Pakistan's Floods a Portent of a Future Along the Mississippi?

According to scientists interviewed by National Geographic magazine for a story that is part of their special series exploring the global water crisis, Pakistan’s current monsoonal floods have been made far worse as the result of decades of river mismanagement dating back to the time of British colonial rule.  The authors go on to link the history of river mismanagement in Pakistan to that happening now and in the past within the Mississippi River valley.  "In Pakistan’s wide plains where the bulk of the population lives, the rivers swelled by monsoons have been confined by levees, dams, and canals," the article states, "in much the same way the Mississippi River has in the United States."

Read the entire National Geographic article here.  And you can read my opinion piece regarding an underlying contributor to much of this year's rash of extreme weather events, including the flooding in Iowa and Pakistan, below in this blog.