Water crisis

Hammal Zahid
The water crisis worsens in Pakistan, and foreign diplomats and activists have taken to social media, urging people to save water.Apart from the water storage issue, experts say that water wastage is also a big issue in the country.So many years ago that April, former PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi announced Pakistan’s first National Water Policy, promising consolidated efforts to tackle the water crisis. But experts are skeptical about the authorities’ will to deal with the issue. The country will hold general elections on July 25 and there is an interim government currently in place. A water crisis is a priority neither for the caretaker government nor for the political parties contesting the polls. The authorities remain negligent about the crisis that’s posing a serious threat to the country’s stability, reports Shah Meer Baloch. According to a recent report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Pakistan ranks third in the world among countries facing acute water shortages. Reports by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) also warn the authorities that the South Asian country will reach absolute water scarcity by 2025. “No person in Pakistan, whether from the north with its more than 5,000 glaciers, or from the south with its ‘hyper deserts,’ will be immune to this [scarcity],” said Neil Buhne, UN humanitarian coordinator for Pakistan. It is not the first time that development and research organizations have alerted Pakistani authorities about an impending crisis, which some analysts say poses a bigger threat to the country than terrorism. Water-intensive country, Pakistan has the world’s fourth-highest rate of water use. Its water intensity rate the amount of water, in cubic meters, used per unit of GDP is the world’s highest. This suggests that no country’s economy is more water-intensive than Pakistan. The bulk of Pakistan’s farmland is irrigated through a canal system, but the IMF says in a report that canal water is vastly underpriced, recovering only a quarter of annual operating and maintenance costs. Meanwhile, agriculture, which consumes almost all annual available surface water, is largely untaxed. Experts say that population growth and urbanization are the main reasons behind the crisis. The issue has also been exacerbated by climate change, poor water management, and a lack of political will to deal with the crisis. “Pakistan is approaching the scarcity threshold for water. What is even more disturbing is that groundwater supplies — the last resort of water supply — are being rapidly depleted. And worst of all is that the authorities have not indicate that they plan to do anything about any of this,” Michael Kugelman, South Asia expert at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center, told DW in a 2015 interview. Qazi That, a secretary at the Ministry of Water Resources, told DW the situation is “scary” for Pakistan.Water scarcity is also triggering security conflicts in the country. Experts say the economic impact of the water crisis is immense, and the people are fighting for resources. If we say about climate change and water scarcity in Pakistan have been accompanied by rising temperatures. In May, at least 65 people died from heatstroke in the southern city of Karachi. In 2015, at least 1,200 people died during a spate of extremely hot weather. According to the IMF, Pakistan’s per capita annual water availability is 1,017 cubic meters perilously close to the scarcity threshold of 1,000 cubic meters. Back in 2009, Pakistan’s water availability was about 1,500 cubic meters. Environmental expert and research fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad. At the time of Pakistan’s birth in 1947, forests accounted for about 5 percent of the nation’s area, but they have now dropped to only 2 percent. Pakistan must invest in building water reservoirs and planting more trees. Water scarcity in Pakistan has been accompanied by rising temperatures Water politics In 1960, the World Bank brokered the Indus Water Treaty ) which gives Pakistan exclusive rights to use the region’s western rivers Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab while India has the authority over three eastern rivers. The Tarbela and Mangla dams, the country’s two major water reservoirs, reached their “dead” levels last week, according to media reports. The news sparked a debate on social media over the inaction of authorities in the face of this crisis.According to a recent report by the International Monetary Fund, Pakistan ranks third in the world among countries facing acute water shortages. Reports by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) also warn the authorities that the South Asian country will reach absolute water scarcity by 2025. It is not the first time that development and research organizations have alerted Pakistani authorities about an impending crisis, which some analysts say poses a bigger threat to the country than terrorism. Water scarcity is also triggering security conflicts in the country. Experts say the economic impact of the water crisis is immense, and the people are fighting for resources. Heat waves and droughts in Pakistan are a result of climate change. The monsoon season has become erratic in the past few years. The winter season has shrunk from four to two months in many parts of the country. On top of it, Pakistan cannot save floodwater due to a scarcity of dams.