The year 2025 has been marked as the year when Pakistan — if it doesn’t mend its ways

soon — will turn from a “water-stressed” country to a “water-scarce” country. Warnings

about water running out have been issued separately by the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) and the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR).
And as the alarm bells began to ring, the chief justice of Pakistan launched a campaign to
build the Diamer Bhasha and Mohmand Dam. In his inaugural speech, Prime Minister
Imran Khan, too, has announced his backing for the plan.

Whether a single dam is the panacea to all of Pakistan’s water woes is, of course,
questionable.

Pakistan is now a severely water-stressed country. But while everyone is vocally concerned
about the scarcity of water and obsessed with constructing large dams, we continue to
squander the resource we already have

Consider the facts: per capita surface water availability of 5,260 cubic metres per year in
1951 turned into around 1,000 cubic metres in 2016. This is likely to further drop to about
860 cubic meters by 2025. The PCRWR describe that Pakistan reached the “water stress
line” in 1990 and crossed the “water scarcity line” in 2005.

The Indus river system receives an annual influx of about 134.8 million acre feet (MAF) of
water. The mean annual rainfall ranges from less than 100 millimetres to over 750
millimetres. Surface water comprises glacial melt up to 41 percent, snowmelt up to 22
percent and rainfall 27 percent.

In terms of groundwater, Pakistan is currently extracting 50 MAF from underground

aquifers — this has already crossed the sustainable limit of safe yield. The 1960 Indus
Waters Treaty (IWT) enabled Pakistan to enhance water availability at canal headworks to
about 104 MAF through construction of dams. However, this has decreased due to
increased siltation.

Pakistan’s water woes can largely be bifurcated into issues of quality and quantity. The
water coming into our systems over the past decades hasn’t changed much. But demand
has soared due to an exponential rise in population. Existing reservoirs’ storage capacity
cannot sustain this population boom while its capacity has also been reduced over the
years.

Meanwhile, the water reaching the end user has also decreased due to further losses along
the way. Our water management practices are highly inefficient — one illustration is how
freshwater is used for irrigation purposes. The kind of crops we grow — rice and
sugarcane, for example — and the way we irrigate them isn’t sustainable, either.

Because many people’s livelihoods are tied to growing more rice and more sugarcane,
these crops will remain popular. Without any education or awareness about how not to
waste water or how to utilize efficient irrigation methods, the wastage will continue.
While doomsday is just seven years away, it took over 70 years for Pakistan to draw up its
first-ever National Water Policy (NWP), approved in April this year. The policy is still
riddled with some significant gaps but at least, it lays out a few principles that ought to be
adhered to. But in some ways, it is merely a compilation of suggestions. Water sustains life,
society and the economy, and therefore, the scope of the crisis involves many actors and
solutions need to be integrated. A major rethink is required at all levels.

Hell or high water

The Pakistan Economic Survey, 2017-2018 (prepared by the Ministry of Finance) details
the state of the economy over the past year. It announces that the agriculture sector
recorded a “remarkable” growth of 3.81 percent (as opposed to its targeted growth of 3.5
percent). The high water-need crops of rice (8.65 percent growth) and sugarcane (7.45
percent) both surpassed their respective production targets for 2017-18.

Prosperity brought by high water-need crops has meant that more farmers have preferred
planting more rice and sugarcane.

The Pakistan Economic Survey, 2017-2018 notes that while rice was sown over 2,724
thousand hectares last year, it rose to 2,899 thousand hectares this year. “[H]igher
domestic prices and availability of inputs on subsidised rates, good advisory along with
increase in export,” according to the survey, contributed to more land being used to grow
rice. This 6.4 percent increase ultimately yielded a production high of 7,442 thousand
tonnes. Last year, 6,849 thousand tonnes of rice were produced in Pakistan.

The survey also shows that sugarcane was cultivated on an area of 1,313 thousand
hectares, an increase on last year’s area of 1,218 thousand hectares. “[G]ood economic
return encouraged the growers to bring more area under cultivation and [so did]
comparatively timely payments from sugar mills last year,” explains the survey. This 7.8
percent rise in acreage translated into a 7.4 percent hike in production: from 75.482
million tonnes to 81.102 million tonnes.

There is a flip side, however.

More water is utilised in growing these water-intensive crops. For instance, sugarcane
requires 1,500-2,500mm of rainfall (or water from other sources) to complete the growth
cycle. In other words, to produce a kilo of sugarcane, between 1,500 and 3,000 litres of
water are utilised. Similarly, at 0.45 kilograms per cubic metre, Pakistan’s rice water
productivity is 55 percent lower than the average water productivity of one kilogramme
per cubic metre for rice in Asian countries.

Because many people’s livelihoods are tied to growing more rice and more sugarcane,
these crops will remain popular. Without any education or awareness about how not to
waste water or how to utilise efficient irrigation methods, the wastage will continue.

Policy versus reality

It follows, therefore, that a country tethering on the edge of water scarcity ought to de-
incentivise the growing of water-intensive crops. In practice, this means convincing the
farmers that they will not be hit by a financial loss were they to switch to other crops.

The NWP acknowledges that irrigated agriculture is the backbone of the economy and
consumes around 95 percent of the water resources. Furthermore, around one million tube
wells in the country pump about 55 MAF of underground water for irrigation, which is 20
percent more than what’s available from canals — signalling how highly water-intensive
the agriculture sector is. This is all unsustainable.

On the other hand, while there is great water wastage in the rural sector, providing potable
water to the cities has become a challenge. One of the more achievable targets set by the
NWP is the access to clean and safe drinking water and sanitation facilities for all. Towards
that end, the policy has also urged the promotion of greater urban water management and
revision of urban water tariffs. It also encourages enhancing recovery and reducing system
losses, treatment of industrial effluents and provision of sustainable supply of water for
everyone.

But it is still the agricultural sector whose water utilisation needs to be under the
microscope. Till now, the policy seems divorced from the financial compulsions of those
whose livelihoods are associated with the agricultural sector.

The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) told the Senate Forum for Policy Research
on Thursday that Pakistan dumps water worth approximately $21 billion into the
sea each year due to a lack of water conservation systems.

"The country needs three Mangla-sized dams to conserve the amount of water that goes to
sea each year," Irsa members told the meeting while informing them that Pakistan faces a
36 per cent shortage in its water requirements at the moment.

For instance, the Unites States has constructed more than 6,000 large dams other than
small and medium dams. China has built more than 4,000 large dams. India has constructed
more than 400 large dams. Contrary to that, unfortunately, Pakistan has built not more
than five large dams other than small and medium dams.

Meanwhile, groundwater tables are plummeting. According to the World Wide Fund for
Nature in Pakistan, the water table has fallen to below 130 feet (39.6 metres) in central
Lahore. The Indus basin aquifer, as revealed by Nasa satellite data, is the second most
stressed in the world.

Let’s be clear: Pakistan is rapidly running out of water, and much of what’s left is unfit for
consumption. The over 53,000 children that die every year from waterborne disease,
according to Unicef, learn this in the most tragic way. More than two-thirds of Pakistan’s
households drink contaminated water, according to Unicef. Research in Science Advances
journal finds that, based on about 1,200 groundwater samples, up to 60 million people,
more than a quarter of the population, are at risk of consuming arsenic. A whopping 91pc
of Karachi’s water, according to a Pakistani judicial commission report, contains sewage
and industrial waste.

Water pollution isn’t just a public health hazard, it’s also detrimental to the economy.
According to the World Bank, it costs Pakistan nearly 4pc of GDP.

With scarcity having arrived, there’s only so much that can be done. Indeed, the what-
should-be-done question has become the can-anything-be-done question.

Fortunately, the answer is yes. The first step is to craft a national consensus, with buy-in
from the entire political class, for addressing a long-neglected crisis. A new national water
policy, approved last month, is a good start. It needs a strong implementing framework and
should be informed by inputs from Pakistan’s water experts.

Tough decisions will need to be made about changing the public policies that have
exacerbated water woes: a preference for wasteful flood irrigation and water-guzzling
crops, a lackadaisical approach to maintaining and repairing ageing, leaky water
infrastructure; a paucity of wastewater treatment facilities, and a distorted water-pricing
regime that gives consumers little incentive to conserve. Let’s also not forget that CPEC,
with its large-scale projects in Pakistan’s most parched regions, is an accelerant of water
stress.

Building new dams — or getting a favourable decision on the Kishanganga dispute — won’t
make these damaging policies go away. Admittedly, an American urging Pakistan to
develop political consensus to tackle a critical policy dilemma may be a case of the pot
calling the kettle black. In America, partisan gridlock has long stymied efforts to address
poor healthcare and gun violence.

Yes, it’s hard to develop political consensus and national strategies. But it’s essential. For
Pakistan, the alternative is stark: a dry dystopia where some, equipped with electric tube
wells, desperately search for the last drops of groundwater, while others find themselves at
the mercy of rapacious water mafias. Energy resources are exhausted. Public health crises
explode. Water scarcity takes a devastating toll, killing crops, livelihoods, economic growth,
and, slowly, the nation on the whole.

Back in 2007, South Asia scholar Anatol Lieven had warned that water shortages pose “the
greatest threat to the viability of Pakistan as a state and a society”. At the time, his warning
may have seemed hyperbolic.

Today, with the existential threat posed by water stress coming into sharp focus, Lieven’s
warning is sounding remarkably prophetic.
Pakistan’s ease-of-doing business is likely to be affected in the coming decade as the
$300 billion economy struggles to mitigate imminent risks, according to a report
released by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The report titled ‘Regional Risks for Doing Business’ has listed water crisis, unmanageable
inflation, terrorist attacks, failure of urban planning and critical infrastructure as
immediate risks faced by the country with 220 million inhabitants.

The risks were identified after the WEF carried out an ‘Executive Opinion Survey’ between
January and June. The findings were tabulated after receiving responses to survey’s risk-
related questions for the South Asian region – Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri
Lanka.

The report highlights 10 major risks to doing business in South Asia including failure of
national governance, unmanageable inflation, unemployment and under-employment,
failure of regional and global governance, cyber attacks, failure of critical infrastructure,
energy price shock, failure of financial mechanism or institution, water crises and large-
scale involuntary migration.

Failure of national governance was listed as one of the foremost challenges faced by the
countries in the South Asian region which has remained politically active during the last
two years as Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Maldives went through highly
charged election seasons.

South Asian elections are usually observed with anxiety, as they are prone to violence,
blockades and tensions. Even after completion, the period following elections is usually
mired with uncertainty.

The report also points out that Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh are susceptible to cyber-
attacks as they continue to run on computers using Microsoft products that report malware
encounters almost regularly. The region’s vulnerabilities came under spotlight after
Bangladesh Bank was hit by hackers who got away with one of the biggest heists in the
history, robbing the country’s central bank of more than $80 million.

‘Unmanageable inflation’ was ranked as the second-highest risk in the region. South Asia
benefited from low global oil prices during 2014-16, but a combination of rising energy
prices and expansionary monetary and fiscal stances point to rising inflationary risks.

In July this year, Pakistan’s inflation rate reached four-year highs as rupee’s value
continues to deteriorate. The report highlights unemployment or under-employment as the
third leading risk for the region.

Of the 19 countries facing imminent cyber-attack risks, 14 were from Europe and North
America, by contrast, 22 of the 34 countries that facing ‘unemployment or under-
employment’ as top-most risks hail from sub-Saharan African region.
Geo-political concerns were relatively muted, with ‘failure of regional and global
governance’ and ‘terrorist’ attacks in ninth and tenth place globally, respectively.

The starkest of geopolitical risks, ‘interstate conflict’ was ranked in the top three risks in 17
countries. Most of these countries were in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, a pattern that
reflects the increasing importance of that part of the world as global geopolitical balances
undergo recalibration.

In the fight against water scarcity, every drop of water counts. As the poem by Julia Abigail
Fletcher Carney goes,

"Little drops of water,

Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land."

Pakistan has the world’s fourth highest rate of water consumption and has the highest
water intensity rate.

According to a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Pakistan ranks third
among the countries facing acute water shortage.

 Reduced rainfall
 Poor water management
 Poor handling of industrial wastewater
 Climate change
 Lack of political will to address the governing issues
 Change in food consumption pattern and lack of proper water storage facilities
 Ignorance at the household level
 Wastage of drinking water in non-productive means
 The farming community needs to shift from traditional methods of irrigation to
modern methods such as drip irrigation, sprinkler irrigation etc. Drip irrigation is an
effective technique to improve irrigation efficiency, saving water and protecting
land form water logging and salinity. Moreover, this system is of great importance in
arid and semi-arid regions such as Balochistan.

 Sprinkler irrigation is another technique to utilise water equivalent to the water

requirement of a crop and application of excess of water which may cause deep
percolation and water logging could be avoided. Thus, this system considerably
increases irrigation efficiency.
 Lack of precision land leveling has been contributing to application losses up to 50
per cent, uneven distribution of irrigation water, leaching of nutrients, water logging
and salinity, loss of cultivated land due to excessive bunds, trouble in cultural
practices and lower yield of crops.

 Realising the importance of land leveling, the Punjab government has launched a
programme of providing the farming community laser sets in irrigated areas for
development of irrigated agriculture which is the hub of farming activities. It is
estimated that this programme would help in curtailing 50 per cent application
water losses and increase in cultivated area.

 At the farm level, conservation practices such as zero-tillage sowing of wheat in rice-
wheat cropping system could increase water use efficiency by 20 per cent, decrease
cultivation cost of wheat by about 82 per cent, reduce energy consumption by 81
per cent and increase yield by 15 per cent.

 Likewise, suitable sowing method also helps improving irrigation efficiency. For
instance, bed-furrow sowing of wheat and cotton increase irrigation efficiency up to
30 per cent.

 Moreover, appropriate cropping pattern could have considerable effect on water

saving. For instance, spring planted sugarcane crop requires 64-80 acre-inch of
water per acre, while autumn cane crop requires 80-100 acre-inch of water per acre.
Thus a crop water requirement is an important yardstick that could be used while
selecting a crop in a particular region.

 Importantly, the farming community needs to optimise plant population, use

recommended irrigation methods, ensure timely sowing of crop, manage weeds free
fields, adopt effective plant protection measures, optimal tillage during fallowing,
use organic manures and where possible use mulches.

 Problems like water theft, conflicts on the issues of water distribution, cutting of
trees from canal banks and many other pilfering activities are prevailing unabated.

 Therefore, irrigation strategy encompassing appropriate measures for checking

water theft from water courses and canals would directly benefit the farmers
located at the tail ends. Socio-economic uplift of the farming community in irrigated
tract is greatly associated with steady supply of irrigation water essential for
increasing farm productivity.

 Water is an absolutely critical part of our daily lives, yet we are forced to make do
with limited amounts of water due to immense shortages. Increasing demand for
water is pushing the country’s vulnerable system to its limits, as a result of which
the country faces a water shortage.
 Pakistan was first classified as ‘water stressed’ in 1990. Over the years, while our
population has increased, inefficient practices regarding the use of this precious
 resource have lingered. As a result we are now headed towards the ‘water scarcity’
line — according to the World Resources Institute (2015) report, water availability
has fallen below 1,000 cubic meter per person as against 5,600 cubic meter per
person at the time of independence. Accompanied with inefficient practices and
population growth, climate change poses an additional threat to the already
stressed water resources of the country.

 As population increases, better management of water resources becomes
more imperative for Pakistan


 Recently a study was conducted to review the vulnerability of Pakistan’s water
sector due to climate change by the Centre for Climate Research and Development at
COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad and the International
Institute for Sustainable Development in partnership with the ministry of climate
change and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Pakistan.
 The study shows that climate change does not appear to pose a significant threat to
water supply in the coming decades. Scientific evidence suggests that until at least
2050 the volume of water flowing in the Indus River and its tributaries is likely to
remain relatively stable or even increase.
 However, the study also suggests that higher temperatures and growing population
will lead to a significant increase in water demand across Pakistan, adding to the
stress on our water system. In order to prevent disastrous consequences, we need
to significantly increase our focus on managing the increasing demand for water.
 There are several key steps that can and should be taken immediately to mitigate
the problem. The first integral step is to improve irrigation practices. The Indus
River irrigation system has large inefficiencies, and only about 30 per cent of the
water flowing through the system is delivered to farms while farmers at the tail end
of the system rarely get water.
 We can improve these inefficiencies by ensuring that farmers use modern irrigation
practices to yield maximum production per unit of water used and the result is not
water logging. In the current scenario, the sprinkler or drip irrigation methods is
one of the most efficient ways to irrigate land. These systems save up to 70 percent
water as compared to conventional flood irrigation method which is currently in
use.

 Drip irrigation — www.irrigationoutlet.com
 In addition to promoting high-efficiency irrigation systems among farmers with
small holdings, the next second step is to improve water management more broadly.
This can be done by enforcing regulations in a better way, as well as by raising
water prices and recovery rates. The revenues that are currently generated are not
enough to meet the operation and maintenance costs in terms of hiring management
staff and maintaining infrastructure. For instance, in Punjab, water is charged at a
meagre flat rate of 85 rupees per cropped acre during summer (kharif season) and
50 rupees per acre during the winter (rabi season). As a result revenue collection is
only 68 percent of operation and maintenance expenditures (Agriculture and Food
Security Policy, Government of Pakistan, 2013). This ratio between operation /
maintenance cost and revenue collection is 80 and 77 percent in Sindh and Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa respectively (Agriculture and Food Security Policy, Government of
Pakistan, 2013).
 A third critical step we can take is to urgently improve our water storage system.
Not much of the water flowing through the Indus River is being stored for future use
during the rabi and drought season. The back-up supply of water is only enough to
 last 30 days — dangerously far below the recommended 1,000 days. According to
the ministry of water and power (MoP, 2005), due to the non-availability of enough
storage facilities and sedimentation of existing reservoirs, approximately 25 to 30
MAF (million acre feet) of water flows into the sea annually against approximately
10 MAF needed to flow downstream the Kotri barrage for environmental needs.
However, according to Dr Zaigham Habib, a consultant working in the water sector,
downstream Kotri flow in the last 10 years (2006-2015) has decreased to 15-20
MAF. This extra water flowing into the sea can be stored by building new reservoirs
or upgrading the existing ones to make Pakistan a water secure country.
 The importance of taking steps to better manage our water cannot be overstated.
Pakistan’s population has increased four times since independence, and is expected
to grow to more than 300 million by 2050.
 We need a plan of action to keep our system from buckling under the weight of this
growing water demand. By managing our existing water resources through better
irrigation practices and improving how we store water for future use, we can make
sure that every drop counts.
 The total potential of groundwater in Pakistan is 55MAF (Pakistan Water Strategy
Report).

Scarcity of water and drought has compelled the countries to adopt the
conservation measures. In the scare water situation, Islam do not permits unnecessary
utilisation of water. Scrolling the pages of Islamic history, we witness the struggle of
Hazrat Hajira for water under blazing sun in the burning desert and sprouting of water
spring from the rocky soil as a gift from Allah. The efforts for search of water was so
much liked by the Almighty Allah that it has become a fundamental part of Hajj till the
Day of Judgment. Moreover, cessation of water with stones to avoid its wastage and
stocking it for long time besides saying “Zam Zam “means “stop” was the first step
towards water storage, which led to concept for construction of dams.

Water Conservation Strategy

To work out a sound and cogent water conservation strategy is the need of the
time, as demand for water continues to rise because of increasing use of water in
agriculture and industry for the purpose of economic development and due to rapid
growth of population, whereas there is limited supply of water. Water management is the
biggest challenge of 21st century confronted by the country, as irrigated agriculture is 24
percent of GDP, the livelihood for the majority of country and input of agro-based
industry/exports. It has been made known that a considerable amount of water is lost
during its conveyance for the seepage in the lengthy canals. Proper lining of the canal
system could reduce these losses. According to a WAPDA Report more than 5 MAF of
irrigation could be saved by lining of minor canals and addition 3.6 MAF could be saved
by improvement of water courses. It is heartening to note that Government of the Punjab
has introduced modern telemetery system to check and control water theft by the farmers.
In order to overcome the menacing of water shortage and its losses, it has become
imperative to work on the lines of “Blue Revolution” which is threshold of the strategy
meant for making use of more effective techniques and obtaining optimum results for
reduction in water losses. The definition of “Blue Revolution” has been coined as a
system of drip irrigation that delivers water directly to the roots of crops by cutting use of
water by 30 to 70 percent and raising crop yield on the average by 20 to 90 percent.
The Medium Term Development Framework (MTDF) 2005-10 proposes a water
conservation strategy with the aim to improve the performance and utilisation of water
supply and sanitation system and reducing financial dependence on the Federal and
Provincial Governments pertains to (i) adoption of integrated approach, rational resource
use, and the introduction of water efficient techniques; (ii) containment of environment
degradation; (iii) institutional strengthening, capacity building and human resource
development (HRD); (iv) improving performance and utilisation of local systems through
better planning, management and community participation; (v) improving quality of life
and easy access to water supply, especially for women, (vi) improving sanitation through
sewerage and drainage schemes; (vii) promoting increased take up of household
sanitation; and (viii) improving the understanding of the linkages between hygiene and
health through community education campaigns, especially among the women and
children.
Apart from MTDF strategy following recommendations are proposed in the
contest of water conservation and management;
Crash programme for cleaning of water channels including canals/water courses
and distributaries.
Participatory water management at secondary tertiary level in collaboration with
provincial irrigation departments.
Regulating ground water pumpage by issuance of licenses to check overdraft of
aquifer.
Better water management for increasing cropping intensity with riverine area.
Technical land levelling, surge irrigation, high irrigation efficiency technology
including drip and sprinkler.
Strengthening of institutional capacity building by improving financial
sustainability.
Better and more efficient use of funds.
To harness the uncultivated lands for irrigation purpose, storage of flood water
during Monsoon season by construction of a series of small dams/reservoirs on
the barren lands and Barani areas of Northern Punjab, NWFP and Balochistan.
Attracting more foreign investment by making an environment lucrative to it.
Launching of incentive based upon public campaign emphasising conservation
of water at all levels.