Looming groundwater crisis

EDITORIAL: A World Bank report released late last week, pointing out that Pakistan faced a severe groundwater crisis in 2020 despite the Indus basin groundwater in aquifers being at least 80 times the volume of freshwater held in the country’s three biggest dams, presents serious problems for a government already struggling with a looming water crisis. The report, titled ‘Groundwater in Pakistan’s Indus Basin: Present and Future Prospects’, also noted the rather obvious fact that Pakistan ‘lacks a comprehensive, reliable system for measuring groundwater extractions and their impact on the resource base’. Considering that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government appears to have taken the threat of water scarcity very seriously since its very first days in office, one would expect it to go out of its way to protect high volumes of groundwater still available since it understands the fragility of freshwater supply. Yet even as late as last year it was noted that whatever limited investment was taking place in its measurement was infrequent and continued to lack coordination, which of course limited the use of groundwater for tackling emerging challenges.

Already the rate of the country’s population growth, combined with the effects of climate change, is putting unbearable pressure on its water security and drinking water quality. And if the situation is left unchecked any longer it will substantially raise the cost of treatment of drinking water at a time when the public sector is hamstrung by a lack of funds, which means an unavoidable rise in poverty rates especially in rural areas. Surely, the government, with its rather large team of economic and financial advisors, doesn’t need to be reminded of the knock-on effect such things are going to have on agriculture output, employment in the country’s largest sector, as well as the export industry. It is therefore quite shameful that despite national and international experts predicting just such a crisis for decades, and even identifying key requirements to meet this challenge, little or no attention has been paid to it so far. The present administration did make some noise about it; but that, too, was early in the political cycle and nothing has been heard of it since.

One of the main problems is, as the World Bank report points out, that despite the enormity of this problem groundwater resources are still very poorly understood both at the basin level and by local administrative units, which control most water-related service delivery. It would not have taken too much for any one of our governments over the last three decades to dedicate some resources and a working unit to ensure reforms at these levels, especially since the threat was building so clearly, yet nothing of the sort was done. That alone speaks volumes about the importance successive rulers have attached to the country’s water needs. And it doesn’t speak too well of the present administration either that, even though it seems to appreciate the gravity of the situation better than some of its predecessors, its lack of action is just as glaring.

For a start it could pick up where this report ends and work on environment regulation, invest more in waste water treatment and manage the pumping infrastructure better because its unmanaged expansion has led to an increase in groundwater contamination from industrial, domestic and natural sources. Right now the total renewable freshwater available per person in Pakistan is somewhere around 1,100 cubic meters per year, which the World Bank says is “substantial,” but it also warns that failure to address this problem immediately will worsen groundwater quality and quantity, which will adversely affect many generations and lead to a visible decline in economic prosperity. In fact, the way things are going Pakistan’s population growth alone would reduce the per person availability of freshwater to 900 cubic meters per year by 2047. And demographic and climate changes will only worsen the situation and add to the problems.

The government must initiate substantive reforms in this sector at once. For that it would no doubt need to put aside a lot more money for this sector than it has done so far. So the sooner it begins the long process of juggling its other priorities to make some financial room for something as central to life and wellbeing of individuals as well as nations as water, the better for the fortunes of the whole country and everybody in it.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021