The city of Karachi faces a dire future—scientists forecast it could be entirely underwater in just 37 years. Responding to this urgency, Pakistani architect Namra Khalid, winner of the Young Climate Visionary Award, is leading a groundbreaking effort to map the city’s vulnerabilities and possibilities.

An architectural designer turned urban research activist, Khalid is producing the first socio-climatic map of Karachi in its entirety. Through open-access map repositories, her project Karachi Cartography traces the city’s evolution, creates a visual timeline of its climatic development, and projects its precarious future. By uncovering patterns of urbanization, she makes visible the ways in which administrative paralysis, unplanned densification, infrastructural collapse, and socioeconomic disparities compound the impacts of extreme weather—disproportionately affecting the city’s most vulnerable.

Her aim is clear: to build awareness, prepare communities for adaptation, and design resilience strategies with local participation. This growing database will serve as both a training ground for adaptation and a tool for implementation strategies.

Through the Young Climate Prize, Khalid was paired with a mentor Henk Ovink, Dutch Special Envoy for International Water Affairs, to help scale Karachi Cartography—a project addressing the cycles of record-breaking rains, urban flooding, and drought that Pakistan continues to endure.