Water Scarcity

Dawn is Pakistan's oldest, leading and most widely read English-language newspaper and
is newspaper of record.[3] It is one of the country's three largest English-language dailies
and the flagship of the Dawn Group of Newspapers. It was founded by Quaid-i-
Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah in Delhi, India, on 26 October 1941 as a mouthpiece for
the Muslim League. DAWN is published by Pakistan Herald Publications, which also owns
the magazine Herald, the information technology magazine Spider, and the advertising
marketing and media magazine Aurora. Following is a critical review on a currently national
issue regarding ‘water scarcity’.

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

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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 utilise 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
firstever 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

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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

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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.

Dr Pervaiz Amir, director of the Pakistan Water Partnership (PWP) believes that policies are
designed and implemented for the people and the civil society should have been engaged in
debates and discussions towards this end. “Balochistan has already prepared its water policy
whereas Punjab and Sindh are working on theirs,” explains Dr Amir. “It is very important
that the provincial policies are congruent and must not be in conflict with the national water
policy of Pakistan.”

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For him, the federal water ministry is weak and there is an urgent need to strengthen Water
and Power Development Authority (Wapda). “Instead of reviving old horses, a better option
is to establish a new institution which has a diverse set of experts, not just engineers,” he
adds. The PWP chief points out that the policy fails to explain the most important question
of where the resources will come from. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is one
option; the Chinese are already operating a plant to provide potable water to their engineers
working in water-scarce Gwadar. But will such measures have broader utility?

“Through CPEC, investments are going to increase,” continues Dr Amir, “and the question
about how CPEC is going to integrate with water demands immediate attention. We should
know the supply and demand side.”

The policy is also silent on reactivating centuries-old traditional wisdom of water

management and use of tools such as Rodh Koi system, Sailaba, Karez systems, etc. It should
also address the trans-boundary water pollution aspect, on which even the Indus Waters
Treaty is silent.”

While experts have termed the policy a step in the right direction, they have also
recommended some measures that will make it further inclusive and bridge possible gaps.
Now that the policy has been approved, the government must work aggressively to
implement it in letter and in spirit if it is serious to address the water crisis that the entire
nation is grappling with.

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