Mangroves in Karachi: Suparco images show Mai Kolachi creeks turned into reclaimed plots

Mangroves and tidal creeks along Karachi's coast near the Mai Kolachi Bypass have been replaced by reclaimed land and urban plots, satellite images released by Pakistan's space agency Suparco show. The images compare the same stretch of coast in 2000 and 2025, Dawn reported on Monday.

In a note with the images, Suparco said the change reflects a shift from protecting the coast with natural ecosystems to "hard, land-intensive development", and warned that removing mangroves weakens the coastline's ability to cope with climate stress.

What losing mangroves does

According to Suparco, clearing the mangroves cuts the links between creeks, changes tidal flows and increases surface runoff. The result, it said, is a higher risk of:

• local flooding in low-lying neighbourhoods during heavy rain and high tides;
• shoreline erosion and instability;
• long-term land subsidence;
• damage from sea-level rise, cyclones and storm surges;
• the loss of fish nurseries and of a "blue carbon" store that keeps carbon out of the air.

The Mai Kolachi stretch runs between the old city and the port, close to areas that already flood in heavy monsoon rain.

Replanting works where it is done

The same note showed the opposite trend in the Indus Delta. In the Shah Bandar area of Sujawal, Suparco analysed 19 sites between 2019 and 2026 and found mangrove cover up 115% from a 2019 baseline of 116.46 hectares. It counted 151.24 hectares of newly established mangroves, about 6.5% of the 2,321.8-hectare study area. That is roughly 374 acres; you can convert land areas to kanals and marlas with our plot size converter.

What experts want

Climate policy specialist Mohammad Saleem Shaikh asked the federal and Sindh governments to:

1. enforce environmental law and stop encroachment on mangrove land;
2. require a full environmental assessment for every coastal project;
3. publish satellite monitoring openly;
4. involve coastal communities;
5. replant with native mangrove species.

Senator Sherry Rehman, who chairs the Senate Standing Committee on Climate Change, declined to comment, and Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab did not respond to Dawn's messages.

Part of a wider fight over Karachi's waterways

The warning comes as Clifton residents protest a plan to cover part of the Nehr-i-Khayyam drain, which links two creeks near Boat Basin. Campaigners say narrowing waterways that carry rain and tidal water to the sea will make urban flooding worse.