Nexus between environmental collapse and hardships faced by the people in flood-prone areas of South Punjab, Pakistan

This Study explores how the environmental collapse escalates human hardship in flood-prone areas by disrupting livelihoods and causing displacement, contaminated water, and food insecurity. This study used a qualitative approach, which was based on a phenomenological research design to obtain deep insight. The purposive sampling technique helped to recruit thirty participants (fifteen men and fifteen women) from flood-prone areas of District Rajanpur, South Punjab, Pakistan. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted to collect data and analyzed through thematic analysis. Results indicate that environmental collapse, in form of land degradation and soil erosion, deforestation and loss of natural buffers, inappropriate land use, pollution and waste management failures, and climate change and environmental loops, aggravates the occurrence and magnitude of floods that in turn cause complex hardships for local communities. Flood-affected participants reported experiencing displacement, loss of livelihood, food insecurity, and limited access to health services as ongoing challenges. Women emphasized extra roles in caregiving, lack of movement, and increased exposure to gender-based vulnerability and loss of kitchen gardening and small-scale farming. The research concludes that environmental collapse and human hardships are so closely connected that we need to create combined disaster management policies, which will incorporate ecological restoration with community-based resilience approaches.