Sophia Tabibian ’26 spoke about flooding issues in Pakistan, bridging research to reality.
Inspired by an entrepreneur from Pakistan and their work on possible flood mitigation measures in their country, Sophia Tabibian ’26 took the stage in Kemper Auditorium last Friday for her Sustainability Scholar presentation. Tabibian’s talk was titled “Financing Flood Risk Mitigation: Provincial Autonomy and Climate Investing in Pakistan.”
Tabibian addressed the increasing severity of flooding in Pakistan. She explored factors behind the declining response system, including ineffective fiscal policies, mismanaged tax revenues, and language barriers.
“Right now, flood warning systems have very poor infrastructure, and they also aren’t specific to the local regions. For example, there are a lot of farming communities that have their own local dialects, and it’s hard to translate the warnings into their languages. Building up the infrastructure of local warning systems specific to each community is incredibly important. What we also see is that a lot of people who leave rural areas and go into cities during floods often have no employment opportunities because the cities are just strained with so many farmers who are leaving the rural areas [and have to return to] their farms, which have been destroyed by the floods,” said Tabibian.
Tabibian proposed four novel approaches in her presentation designed to combat the growing flood crisis in Pakistan. For attendee Madelyn Esposito ’27, of the four methods that Tabibian introduced, increasing educational capacity stood out the most to her.
Alexis Lee ’28, who hadn’t previously learned about the drastic effect of climate change in Pakistan, found Tabibian’s presentation eye-opening and informative. Lee expressed her surprise at the fact that these issues were treated as everyday occurrences in Pakistan.
“I don’t remember it ever being in the news at all… I also didn’t know the government didn’t do that much to help and that it happened so frequently. Even though it’s happened so many times, no one has really changed the infrastructure or helped with the floods being managed, so that leads to it happening over and over again,” said Lee.
“Increasing education capacity, especially in a country like Pakistan where a lot of the society is built around agriculture and it’s more rural, making sure that people can learn about these issues, and that they themselves can become involved is really important as well. I think it was really important that she touched on that,” said Esposito.
Reflecting on Tabibian’s proposed solutions for the flooding crisis, Esposito commended her thorough approach. Esposito described how Tabibian focused on local solutions that connected to those most directly affected by the floods.
“It was really important that her solutions focused on what Pakistan itself can do, because she did talk about how foreign aid helps but is more performative than anything and it doesn’t actually make change. The change has to really start at the site of the issue. She took a very local approach to this issue. If you’re looking at an issue very locally, you have to think about the solutions locally as well,” said Esposito.
Tabibian ended on an optimistic note, emphasizing Pakistan’s youth population as a key driver for future climate action. She highlighted that educating the upcoming generations on sustainability could lead to improved resource allocation for flood mitigation and long-term resilience.
“68 percent of Pakistan’s population is under the age of 30, and that presents a huge opportunity for climate education, because if we can educate all of those younger generations on the importance of sustainability, it’s going to be a lot easier to deploy resources towards issues like flood mitigation in the future,” said Tabibian.
Sergia Hay, Instructor in Religion and Philosophy and Tabibian’s faculty advisor, praised Tabibian’s ability to weave humanity into her work. Hay expressed that such research opportunities allow students to develop critical skills to build a better future.
“What impressed me most was [Tabibian’s] ability to represent her humanity through the project. She was focused on how her project was connected to people’s actual conditions in the world… Our students will be coming into leadership positions as they get older, and at this stage in their education, it’s a really wonderful opportunity to be practicing research skills, presenting one’s work, and thinking about large interdisciplinary problems,” said Hay.
