HYDERABAD, Aug 28: The University of Sindh Vice-Chancellor Dr Mazharul Haq Siddiqui has said that deterioration in water quality due to contamination of lakes, rivers and groundwater aquifers has led to increased waterborne diseases and other health hazards.

He said at the inaugural session of a workshop on “Urban Water Demand Management” organised by the university’s Centre of Excellence in Analytical Chemistry (NCEAC) on Wednesday that Pakistan needed to formulate policies on a war-footing to balance water withdrawals by recharging resources.

The two-day workshop has been organised jointly by Sindh University, University of Exeter UK, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology and Sindh Agriculture University.

The vice-chancellor said that Pakistan was blessed with adequate surface and groundwater resources right from the northern Himalayas to Karachi. Still, there was an immense stress on the quality as well as quantity of water resources in the country, he said.

He said that rapid growth in population, urbanisation and unsustainable water consumption practices were possibly behind this problem.

In early 1950s Pakistan was primarily rural, with only a handful of small to middle-sized cities while the urban population now stood at about 60 million and quite naturally the increase in population had increased burden on all the natural resources including water, he said.

Beside, over the years there had been a marked decrease it per capita availability of water from 5,000 cubic meters per annum in 1950 to 1,100 in 2006, he said.

Mr Siddiqui said that the principle source of drinking water for majority of people in Pakistan was groundwater, which had gone down over the years. Water table around Lahore had been falling more than half a meter a year over the past 30 years, resulting in shortage of sweet water, he said.

He said that Pakistan should have adequate water available through proper management practices. Water supplies should be of good quality, equitably distributed to meet the needs of all users through an efficient management, institutional and legal system, he said.

He said that it was encouraging to see a number of foreign experts in water-saving and recycling joining the workshop and expressed the hope that their deliberations would be a great help in learning more about water demand management.

Dr Fayaz Memon from Exeter University, London, highlighted the importance of Urban Water Demand Management and said that the British Council had funded the project.

He said that key objectives of the project were to launch Phase-III pilot projects in Hyderabad with four stakeholders, which comprised University of Sindh, Mehran University, Sindh Agriculture University and Exeter University, UK.

He said that the project being funded under the Development Partnership in Higher Education (DelPHE) would focus on capacity development and skills to identify issues and proper solution to launch three pilot projects in Hyderabad and produce three PhDs.

Dr M.I. Bhangar said that Pakistan was on the list of most-stressed country in the world with water availability reduced to 1,100 cm3/capita.