Date of Award

January 2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Public Health (MPH)

Department

School of Public Health

First Advisor

Chelsey R. Carter

Second Advisor

Kaveh Khoshnood

Abstract

In the summer of 2022, between June and August, Pakistan experienced a large-scale flooding disaster due to torrential rains that led to riverine, urban, and flash flooding. One-third of the country was covered in contaminated flood water, 33 million people were impacted by the floods, 8 million were displaced and 1,700 lives were lost. Flooding is a natural occurrence on the Indus River already, made worse by colonial overirrigation and now by the climate crisis. The approach to this project combines a synthesis literature review with spatial analysis and case study. The thesis begins with a deep historical literature review that covers the range of colonial-era water practices to the modern day along with a specific look at climate change and flooding. Keywords in the search included: modern colonialism, post-colonialism, climate change, flooding, and waterborne diseases. The spatial analysis was conducted via ArcGIS Pro 3.3.0 and the data visualizations displayed how temperature and rainfall have increased over the past sixty years along with flood water reach after the 2022 floods. Health risks of the physical manifestations of colonialism and climate change through flooding come as short and medium-term health impacts. Examples of this would include instances of diarrhea, cholera, leptospirosis, and typhoid fever which all increase as there is overflow due to flooding and houses do not have access to safe sanitation (Minicucci et al, 2023). Climate reparations have been recommended as an opening discussion to approaching the intersectional catastrophes rooted in history. Still, it is important to frame reparations in a way that allows for a new story to be told in a remaking of the world (Raza, 2023). History is directly related to health, and it is important in the context of public health to understand and acknowledge the role history plays to properly mitigate, resist, and undo the harm already done.

Comments

This thesis is restricted to Yale network users only. It will be made publicly available on 06/16/2027

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