A new book warns that Pakistan is expected to become water-scarce by 2035, though some experts say this may happen as soon as 2020, if not earlier.
In addition to global warming, which has affected the volume of the Indus River, Pakistan’s water shortages are caused by a long history of intensive irrigation regimes and poor drainage practices that have caused waterlogging and soil salinity throughout the countryside. And after dedicating most of its water supply to agriculture, Pakistan is left with only 10 per cent for drinking water and sanitation.
To help address the shortfall, the government has approved a Rs 894.25 billion dam project in the Northern Areas. This project is expected to counter the fact that the capacity of the Tarbela Dam has been declining because of sedimentation. The proposed 272-metre high concrete dam would have a storage capacity of 6.4 million acre-feet and it would irrigate more than 33 million acres.
Can such projects help reverse the water shortage trend in Pakistan? Are new, high-cost dams the best solution for Pakistan’s water problems and related energy crisis? Since new hydroprojects are not expected to payback for decades to come, what can the government do in the meantime to alleviate the suffering of citizens – such as the fishermen of Sindh – whose livelihoods have been affected by chronic water shortages? Or do you think Pakistan is now at the mercy of climate change? What impact do you think water shortages will have on Pakistani society in the decades to come?
The following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
There is a crisis of leadership and sanity all around including the ‘WATER ISSUES’Apart from a number of things which our Dictators have done to this country the ‘INDUS BASIN TREATY’and the Water Management there off is another example of what worst they could do to this country.
Technocrats could not do their job right also.
One of the things Pakistan can do to counter water shortages is to build plants to convert sea water into drinking an irrigation water.
I have heard Saudi Arabia is investing in Pakistan to irrigate huge area of land for agriculture prodcution.
Other arab nations are also interestd in leasing land for agriculture in Pakistan.
Pakistan should invite investment from Arab countries to create such plants along the shore to produce irrigation water.
I think it is a step in the right direction, because Pakistan will never have food shortage due to the building of such plants
The situation will only be exacerbated if Pakistan sells its farmland to Saudi. Intensive farming will deplete water reserves when the food is not meant for Pakistanis. This type of colonialism is beginning in Africa also but the people are resisting. Check recent events in Madagascar. Sudan has fallen into the trap.
If these political clowns quit arguing on stupid matters, all problems including this one will be sloved. Pakistan needs another Jinnah or a Liaquat Ali Khan to guide this beautiful nation towards prosperity. Current corrupt political environment shows no hope for this beautiful nation. Political powers are focused to plan and decide which asset of this country should be named after their leaders or what assest should they snatch from the nation. I wonder how much looting and grand thefts this country can bear!
First, we need money but we have corruption. We need to build dams but we need man power. Pakistan is stuck in between a number of problems which are really hard to solve now. I don’t know how each and every problem will get solved because there are just too many things! Birth control would be effective but then you have to educate the people and for that you need good government and for that you need educated and sensible people to vote. It’s a big cluster and the damage has been done. We can’t do much because of the rising crisis of global warming. Lakes,canals,dams and canals with cemented sides should be built to avoid waterlogging and salinity. There should be a strict control on water but then again you come over to the government which is hopeless!
Water Experts Speak Out!
The so called water expert(s) notably one Mr. Shah was seen commenting most recently rather disdainfully during a TV talk show trying to justify his opposition to the Kalabagh Dam Project with the premise of “Where is the extra water for storage?”.
With both Tarbela and Mangla storage capacities exhausted as at present, the vital resource would go wasted and dumped straight into the sea.
Prudent approach would be to have spare storage cushion as and when extra water becomes available – even, if it is not the case every year.
True visionaries look beyond the horizon and have overall national interests served. The council of common interests should play its role in a revitalized manner.
An ordinary example can serve as an eye opener here:
A road needs widening in a city (Say Karachi or Lahore) to serve the larger interests of the community living in and around the area – the feasibility studies of course would compensate at par those affected but still go ahead to achieve the desired goals which is to help ease the traffic congestion throughout the city.
Mohsin Malik
San Francisco Bay Area
When every aspect of this country is run by corrupt leaders- ther is no solution for any of the counties problems. The water crisis is the most urgent facing this country- but no politician is talking about it as they are currentlt too busy fleecing their people
I believe if water from the northern highlands could be directed through a proper irrigation system, right from the moment it tips the plain lands, it may help us survive the water scarcity in the coming days. What’s more a proper installation of hydal-power generation equipment in such areas can also help utilize the immense pressure of the gushing waters in a very useful manner which would both be highly productive and environment-friendly.
Preservation of rain water is the only way to overcome water scarcity in India and Pakistan. Geologists have predicted that water riots will take place in Asia in next five years is a distinct possibility. Lets pray that Allah/ Waheguru saves us from this catastrophy.
The solution to this has to be multi-pronged. Two or three large dams up country, smaller dams as we go south and away from the Indus, lined canals, filteration and reuse of waste water for irrigation, etc and developing artificial lakes to store the seasonal rain water, particularly important in the case of Sindh as most of it tends to just wash out to sea.
Dams,lakes, water conservation, lining the canals etc are all very important, but one very important factor is to control population growth. Pakistan is one of the highest producer of poor, illitrate population.
As someone rightly mentioned, Pakistan’s biggest problem is polution explosion.
I hope this project does not end up as KB dam II. Good luck.
There are lot of solutions for the problem, which are possible with the accountability of public officials and politicians. We do have lot of natural resources as well as talented, smart and hard working people.
It is unfortunate that construction of various dams to store water has been politicized in Pakistan. Due to tug of war between the politicians, construction of dams has been delayed unnecessarily.
The politicians should understand the simple formula that in every house an underground and overhead tank is constructed to store and supply of water.
Similarly, if water dams are construction in the provinces, these will be used to store and supply of water to the people.
The sitting government without wasting any time should plan and construct number of dams/water reservoirs wherever these are required in the country to meet the future requirements of people of Pakistan.
I would once again request the politicians of Pakistan not to politicize construction of dams whether in Sindh or any part of the country, as a day will come when people will be left facing acute shortage of water in the country.
Regardless of whether a project is good or bad for a certain province or region; please think ‘nationally’. If the country as a whole is water or energy deprived; it will affect EVEYRONE. If one doesn’t want to think about oneself, think about your future generations. Our actions or lack there of, may leave them destitute.
According to one of the conclusions in the report of World Commission on Dams-2000, majority of future wars on this planet would be fought for “Water”. The report explains that, global warming has drastically reduced the available fresh water while unstoppable population explosion has increased demands beyond resources. Food shortages are natural result and world is in serious food crisis.
Under this rapidly changing perspective, Indus Water Treaty should have been a blessing in disguise because, World Bank financed Indus Basin Replacement Plan, to which India was a major party in the contributing consortium, had all ingredients to make the plan an avenue of progressive understanding leading to a fast track progress and prosperity in the two countries. But, the self serving greedy leaderships of the two countries failed to appreciate and utilize benefits of the first major agreement reached between them in solving one of their basic disputing issues as an example for extending it to other areas of conflicts for mutual benefits and prosperity. They continued finding and using all means and devices of sharpening their swords for cutting each others’ throats in the name of creating better future for their respective people.
Now, let us be sincere to ourselves and talk in reality. Before putting all blames on India which unfortunately has become our second nature, we must find and remove faults responsible for our grounding plights. Let us start with some of the relevant points given below and allow posterity to decide what went wrong, where and why?
1) If Kashmir is a part of us and we are struggling for its freedom from India, then all its appendages should equally be our property. If India has done any welfare work for Kashmiri people under what ever disposition, ultimately it must come along to us. Therefore, we should not oppose any development in Kashmir and concentrate on the basic issue, that is, a free Kashmir for Kashmiri people.
2) Indus Water Treaty is in tatters because; we failed to do our part of the job. The “Right for Development” for the welfare of people is strongly supported by the UN charter on Human Rights. We need to realize that, in our internal senseless tussle on apportionment of Indus water between provinces, we have allowed the water to go down to sea for over 40 years without being gainfully consumed for any of our people. Therefore, even if India uses it by violating agreement, it has a strong case supported by the charters of the UN, as well as the World Bank. The world bodies have supported India’s stand because of our continued neglect of the Rights for Development in favour of our people. If India is doing it for the Kashmiri people, it is following the guidelines of the UN’s “Right for Development” while we have continued to refuse.
3) The “Indus Basin Development Plan” had foreseen a 30 years of safe operational period of its two storage dams and it was planned to have Kalabagh Dam operational in 1995. It needs to be understood that, Kalabagh Dam was intended to provide only an interim relief equal to the storage capacities lost due to silting in 30 years of operation of Mangla and Tarbela dams. The final stage of the planned water storage had provided a mammoth dam in the Upper Sindh area, having a vast storage capacity of 22 MAF and was expected to be constructed before the year 2000. Preliminary design parameters of the dam were completed as part of the Plan. Being a shallow dam having almost silt-free inflow of water, it was to have an almost endless life span. But, instead of following the planned development, we have entered into our senseless local water wars and have left Right to Development go down the drain into oblivion. Today, no body even appears to remember that, we have solution to the water problem sitting in our archives waiting to be retrieved and used for the much defied prosperity of our people. We only need some really genuine leaders and public servants to rise, pick up the lost strings and work for the Nation.
4) Global warming has drastically reduced our historic river flows from 162 MAF to about 90MAF. It is purely a universal phenomenon basic reason of which is Global Warming, aggravated further by fast depleting Ozone layer due to irresponsible behavior of Industrial powers engaged in burning fossil fuels in ever increasing quantities in complete disregard to the safe limits imposed by the various international protocols. Therefore, senseless accusation between our provinces even before accusing India is adding fuel to the fire already threatening our existence. We need to join forces to counter the onslaught of Global Warming, rather than blame each other for swindling water on unfounded reasons. No body can consume water without being visible and water balances is a simple science to cross-check and know the facts.
5) Leaving rhetoric aside we must realize that, a safe, prosperous and progressive neighbour in Pakistan is equally a requirement of India for its continued economic strides. Unseen hands feeling threatened by the India becoming an economic super-power capable of over-taking the US economy in next 20 years, are systemically erecting economic barriers to retain their own economic might. Therefore, they have used the easiest device in applying brakes by creating Mumbai carnage type incidents. It has created enough friction to reduce fast paced economic progress by diverting resources and attentions to destructive ventures, without being visible. According to their own watch dogs, this event has delayed the dangers of India catching up the US economy, at least by 10 years.
6) Here it is relevant to clear some prevailing wrong concepts about diverting river water from Baghlihar dam to Indian plains. Indus Water Treaty provides for building dams in upstream catchments areas of rivers Chenab and Jhelum, without diverting their water flows, purely for generating electricity from the “run of river” flows. It is easy to see if this provision has been violated. Treaty provides for exchange of visits by experts of the two countries after every 6 months, to observe any activity being carried out in violation of the Treaty. In case of any violation of the covenants observed, there is a clearly defined procedure provided in the Agreement to follow. If during 15 years of construction period of Baghlihar Dam nothing wrong was discovered by the 30 inspection visits, then it cannot suddenly crop up after inauguration of the dam. We should first watch our own steps from they went wrong. We cannot sit idle and leave others to do inspections for us. Ground realities amply prove that we had been grossly indifferent to our tasks during all those 30 inspection visits to India, most probably by incompetent Government officials visiting only for pleasure and sight seeing.
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I just hope pakistan gets clean water. I can’t imagine living somewhere you can’t drink the water from the faucet.
I wish the best for Pakistan!
Did it ever occur to anyone that containing population would have been an expedient far more beneficial than damming streams?
The population bomb is actually a cluster bomb: the deadly bomblets will explode time and again in the not-too-distant future.
There is so much criticism internationally of large dams that they cannot be justified any longer. Their negative environmental effects are both direct and indirect (population increase).
Lakes have been successful in Sri Lanka but only because of the higher amount of rainfall.
Both in agriculture (flood irrigation) and domestic use we are wasting too much water in Pakistan.
Maybe we could have survived a little longer if our canals had been lined in the first place.
Sir, Raising a 272 foot high wall perhaps will be an engineering feat that could hold the weight of so much water. One fact Pakistan should never forget. The strength of a nation depends on quality of its manpower. This project from the very begining must have world class research institute to produce all levels of technical manpower and engineers, Business Adminstrators with international marketing skills. The student quota for the locals should be 20%, another 30% for the rest of the NWFP, and 50% for the rest of Pakistan. The same model can be used in other provinces for mega projects.
Azam
In my opinion the problem stems from Indian dams. India is building dams and preventing Pakistan from getting water. They’re simply making it worse, and our govt is hiding this truth making it worse!
Thats very Right Balakrishna! we need to create canals next to almost all the roads and need to feed many empty lakes by canal . . . we have so many mighty rivers and yet no major lakes . . . even in central asia and sub shara they have created masisve artifical lakes which increases the water table . the best example is once prosperous afghanistan becomes a desert by mongol invaders who destroyed their irrigation system and the country has not recovered yet!
I have suggested it to India,I suggest the method for Pakistan also as a solution.We must make artificial lakes on both sides of expressways to store monsoon waters. Also, wherever we are on the coast, we should build desalination plants for gardening. This will increase food production and induce regular rainfall. Hill and mountain ranges deserve protection.
Kulamarva Balakrishna