Due to climate change, one of the major changes in Pakistan specially in mountainous areas in the occurrence of cloudbursts. Cloudburst is direct impact due to climate change and cloudburst is a new formation or phenomenon in the study of climate change. Tourism is one of the main industry affected by climate change and cloudbursts.
Climate change in Pakistan
The recent updates about climate change in various areas such as Gilgit-Baltistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and different area of Punjab province are reported in 2025 monsoon. Loss of property as well as life losses are reported and it also destroyed the geographical infrastructure of the area. The cloudburst is a new formation due to climate change that greatly impacts the overall atmosphere. The impact of cloudburst is intensified with other climate change factors such as retreating of glaciers, bursting of glaciers, and heavy rainfalls. If proper initiative is not taken to control these climate change impacts, the situation becomes more intensified and unable to stop the vast devastation of these regions.
The cloudburst is a new challenge due to climate change that greatly impacts the overall atmosphere. The impact of cloudburst is intensified with other climate change factors such as retreating of glaciers, bursting of glaciers, and heavy rainfalls. If proper initiative is not taken to control these climate change impacts, the situation becomes more intensified and unable to stop the vast devastation of these regions.
What is Cloudburst?
Cloudburst is normally occurred to due to heavy precipitation in a limited area within a very short time, and the situation become a cause of immediate and heavy hail or thunder. In simple words, the meaning of cloudburst is occurring of more than 25 mm rain falling on one square kilometer in less than five minutes. There would be more than 25 thousand metric tons of water in one square kilometer and it can generate an alarming situation of flash flood.
During the process of cloudburst, more than 100 mm rainfall is expected in one hour, whereas in its initial phase, it may be more than 25 mm rain in just few minutes. In hill areas, the situation becomes more complicated, when it slides out mud and rocks from the mountain and flows with the flood water. It becomes more dangerous as it destroys everything in its passage including houses, crops, as well as infrastructure.
Scientifically, the reason of cloudburst is the accumulation of warm air from the surrounding areas due increase in temperature, and it mixes with the cold air at the point of incident. The mix of warm and cooler air results in immediate condensation. So, the formation of immediate water molecules come out as burst of clouds with rapid precipitation. the water molecules in the clouds. In the Himalayas region of Indian subcontinent, including Pakistan and India, the cloudbursts occur in the monsoon period due to the formation of cloud drifts from the Bay of Bengal or Arabian Sea. More than 75 mm rainfall per hour was reported in these regions.
Impacts of Cloudburst
The preconditions of cloudburst are created in much limited time, so it becomes difficult to detect and forecast the situation of cloudburst before its occurrence using conventional satellite systems. It becomes more difficult to identify in hill regions with more uncertain interactions between moisture conditions and hilly terrain.
More than 100 instances of cloudbursts were reported in the last twenty years in the various regions of India and Pakistan and it is an alarming situation due to climate change. In the recent year of 2025, cloudburst was reported on 15 August 2025 in different regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan including Buner, Bajour, Shangla, and Swat. It resulted in heavy flood in the area and the destruction of lot of houses and losses of more than 350 lives. In India, the same formation of cloudburst was reported on 5 August 2025 in upper area of the Kheer Ganga River in the area of Uttarakhand in the Uttarkashi district.
Cloudburst can be cause of various type destructions and create a long-term economic impact in region as well as for all over the country. One of the major impacts of the cloudburst is the total destruction of the infrastructure of the area such as disconnection of area with other cities of the country as roads and passages are covered with debris due to landslide and intake of flood in the form of rocks and stones. Most of the hilly areas had been cut off from the other areas of the country for number of days. Flood due to cloudburst also destroys the crops and makes unable to clean the area after its devastation and scattered rocks and debris after washing over the area. The more serious destruction is the loss of lives, if it hits the population area and causes house destruction, loss of valuable and livestock, as well as loss of lives. Due to its immediate occurrence and speed, it becomes unavoidable and unmanageable situation, as the result it becomes difficult to vacate the area immediate. As in the most of historical cases, everything was occurred within few minutes or less than three to four hours.
One of the most drastic impact of the climate change and cloudburst is on tourism. It is one of the main industry affected due to climate change and cloudbursts. It becomes difficult or impossible to travel in heavy rain when the chances of landslide and flooding are maximum. Therefore, people avoid to visit hill stations or mountainous areas during such type of unexpected weather conditions.
Due to vast destruction in the area, it becomes difficult to maintain life normal after it. People have lost their relatives, livestock, crops, houses, etc. and they are not able to reconstruct their houses immediately as they have lost their jobs or businesses too. The country has to provide aid, eatables, and camps immediately to survived and tries to restore the infrastructure of the region. This process usually takes much time to make the life normal as before.
Reasons of Cloudburst
No doubt, climate change is one of the major reasons of cloudburst, but the main reasons which ignite the formation of such situation are discussed below. Who is responsible for all of these worst situations? Yes, all of these are human created actions and those are responsible to disturb the normal natural process of atmosphere.
Heavily cutting of trees and reducing the size of forest for the purpose to build societies and clearing area for cultivation. In Pakistan due to illegal cleaning of forest by cutting trees, the overall forest area is reduced by 18% in year 2025. There is no implementation of law to protect the forest area and so proper policy is to replace new trees in the same area. In Chitral district, thousand acres of forest was cleaned off by extra-ordinary cutting of trees. The forest department itself involves in performing illegal cutting of trees and supporting wood mafias to earn illegal money. In the absence of trees, the chances of landslide become more unavoidable. There is way to stop the flow of water and sliding off the rocks and stones to make it more destructive.
Construction of housing societies in the hilly areas by cutting forests as well as leveling the mountains to create land for houses and passages. It increases the temperature in the region by producing more carbon due to increased of population as well as livestock. Such increase in temperature in various areas becomes a primary reason of cloudburst in the near cooler area. To attract the tourist, sometimes restaurants are constructed near the river sides or on the island inside the rivers. Number incidences are reported in Hunza, Swat, and Naran in year 2025 where heavy flood in rivers have destroyed several buildings build over or near the river channel.
An increased in the number of tourists with the improvement in the infrastructure in this area, put an extra pressure by incorporating more people in summer season, and more smoke producing vehicles in the area. As this growth in tourism activities is not well organized it becomes dangerous for coming area with the increase of temperature due to more carbon emission. There is no proper way to dispose of the large size of garbage and sanitation due to incoming tourists, usually people through garbage in rivers and streams and pollute the water by directing inserting sanitation pipes in rivers.
How to avoid Cloudburst?
Reduction the temperature and carbon emission will control the climate change impact, specially the near the glaciers and cold areas. In this way, the distance of the cold regions from the hot region increased, and the flow of warm air becomes cooler slowly and creates a natural process of formation of clouds and rain. The quick flow of warm air into cool air is avoided by restricting various activities such as cutting of trees in nearby areas, populating more people in the region, restrict the geological changes in the area, and avoid artificial ways of removing ice and glaciers from the passages.
A strict policy is developed and implemented to protect the forest and trees. Cutting of trees must be avoided in any case, even local peoples must be restricted to cut the tree for firing purposes. A solid plan must be developed to perform urgent plantation in various regions. Government must have reserved acres of land in various regions to grow more plans in the form of forest just like an artificial forest called Changa Manga in Kasur.
While constructing the infrastructure such as roads and passage for any area, it must be necessary to grow trees along the both sides of road. There must be three to four rows of tree along these passages, as these restrict the landslide as well as protect the road in case of heavy rain and overflow of river or water channel. Construction of houses or restaurants along the main water channels must be avoided in any case.
Building of such housing societies must be avoided which disturb the eco-system and geological change in region. New development must be observed carefully to avoid any change in the climate and atmosphere. It must be necessary to develop these constructions from a specific distance from the water channels to avoid damaging impact due to increased water flow in rivers.
Tourism must be a planned activity to restrict any type of unavoidable situation. There must be proper registration of tourist for particular site to avoid overcrowding in the area. A properly mechanism must be developed to dispose of the extra garbage due to heavy inflow of tourists in the area. A proper guideline must be provided to every tourist to develop a situation that will become unavoidable in future.
A proper training and educating the people will be necessary to avoid and control the climate change impacts. They must be trained to learn about the importance of forests, balanced growth of eco-system, and importance of nature for human development. They must understand the real need of natural atmosphere for their own generation.
Conclusions
Cloudburst is not an unavoidable situation if a proper policy is implemented to protect the atmosphere and to avoid any change that impact atmosphere, eco-system, and geography of the region. If a proper plan is developed and implemented with honesty and the minds of peoples have been educated to restrict all of the such activities then we will be able to protect our atmosphere for our coming generation, otherwise we have already pushed the trigger to destroy everything for our babies to survive themselves on the planet ready for die forever due to consistent increased in temperature and carbon emission.