Development: Making every drop of water count
Flowing out of the Hindu Kush, Karakoram and Himalaya (HKH) mountain ranges through dry plains to the Arabian Sea, the Indus River and its tributaries (Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi, Sutlej and Beas) are central to water, food and energy security in Pakistan. Collectively known as “the Indus Basin”, it is Pakistan’s primary source of fresh surface water and actively replenishes its ground water resources, along with providing nearly 90 percent of the country’s irrigation water for agriculture.
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.