Water nowhere

There are no accidents; a rather impeccable quote from one of my all time favourite movies, Kung Fu Panda, which I believe I improve upon by adding- and there is no such thing as a coincidence.
What brought that on and what does water have to do with it?
Last week, I was forwarded an article by a friend, which had originated from across the eastern border. While I am generally not interested in anything to do with our not so friendly neighbours, but as a patriotic Pakistani, just could not ignore something titled, "India is not "Self-Destructing," It's being Destroyed Systematically"!
The gist of the article was that the time bombs India is sitting on were climate change, toxic environment, crumbling infrastructure, pollution and, last but not least, the current global favourite, the rich getting richer by appropriating the wealth of their respective nations. By the way the last one, unfair income, is a huge problem for monkeys even; if you have the time Google the experiment called "Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay." Nonetheless, since I have already written many times on income inequality before, I ignore that today.
To be honest, perhaps I was hoping for some serious kind of destruction, hence the particular write-up was a letdown; come on which country can be destroyed by climate change. Except that when I got home a series of coincidences shook me into rethinking the fallout of climate change. Firstly I found out that water supply in our residential sector had deteriorated to a weekly trickle and that my home was water stressed; I suddenly had nightmares about a tanker mafia in Islamabad, something akin to what we hear about in Karachi! Immediately thereafter, social media coughed up an article by a Mr Sabri, who asserted that Islamabad is being supplied less than 40% of its water needs - "Capital Development Authority (CDA) Member Planning and Design and Chief Metropolitan Officer (CMO) ...said, "Presently, less than 50 million gallons per day (mgd) is being delivered to the residents of Islamabad from all available resources." He added, "I am worried that the situation may worsen in near future as we don't have a plan to overcome the situation." Apparently, the water level around Islamabad has depleted to worrying levels.
That is too close to home for comfort and hence I started recalling the facts included in the article which were leading to the supposed destruction of India; all that was not boring no more. Increasing temperatures was the first time bomb on the list, with their record standing at a scorching 51 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately, Turbat in Pakistan beats their record where the gauge touched 53.5 degree Celsius last summer; a few notches more and we will hold the world record. On an average we have lesser rain now and higher temperatures across the country.
The NASA study in 2009 which ranked the Indus Basin as the second most over-stressed aquifer obviously has implications for Pakistan as well. In fact, if you have been following the news, certain quarters have been for some time trying to highlight that Pakistan is water stressed; except nobody has been listening to them since we are all too busy with more serious conspiracies.
Pakistan is also not doing very well on the deforestation and desertification front. According to another newspaper, the declining rate of woody biomass, forests I believe, in Pakistan is the second highest in the world; at the current rate we apparently will have consumed our woody biomass in the next 10-15 years. We probably need a lot more tree tsunamis! According to the same article, "more than one-third of the country area has been classified as under risk of desertification". A document on the web, portrayed an even worse scenario for Pakistan with low rain, water erosion, water logging, wind erosion and degrading rangelands; frightening!
I am no expert on these things, but if all that is floating around the web on climate change in Pakistan is accurate, then we have far bigger problems than a democracy under threat. To be honest, I am rather surprised that water stress has still not managed to wriggle into the political landscape as a key issue; perhaps because whenever it does all roads will lead to Kala Bagh Dam where no political party wants to go!
I am definitely not a pessimist and don't believe in beating the doomsday drum; however procrastination is definitely not advisable in this case. Climate change and its repercussions are important enough for me to have taken coincidences seriously enough to write on the topic. Agriculture is the backbone, and pretty much all key parts, of our economy and responsible for feeding a huge and growing population. In addition, reversing water stress, deforestation and desertification takes a long while. In a nutshell, we better start now, or few years down, while we may not destruct, there might be water nowhere.
(The writer is a chartered accountant based in Islamabad. Email: [email protected])