EDITORIAL: The Pakistan Meteorological Department’s latest warning of impending drought across Sindh, Balochistan and southern Punjab is not just a climate bulletin to be filed and forgotten.
With rainfall levels in Sindh reportedly 62% below normal and Balochistan not far behind, vast parts of the country are now staring at the prospect of an intensifying dry spell.
In many districts, conditions have already deteriorated to the point of severe stress: over 200 consecutive dry days in some areas, dam levels near dead storage, and topsoil temperatures steadily rising. This is no longer a forecast – it’s a slow-motion emergency.
The signs could not be clearer. Tarbela and Mangla dams – the twin arteries of Pakistan’s irrigation system – are hovering at critical lows. Mean temperatures have been 2 to 3 degrees Celsius higher than normal in the southern half of the country, further accelerating evaporation and depleting moisture levels.
In Punjab, the provincial disaster management authority has already flagged several districts – including Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar and Rahim Yar Khan – as drought-prone. Yet the official response, so far, remains couched in language of preparedness, not mobilisation. That must change – urgently.
What Pakistan is confronting is a resource crisis with direct implications for food security, rural livelihoods, and national stability.
Agriculture, which sustains a vast proportion of the population and anchors the economy, is exposed to reduced rainfall, declining groundwater, and worsening soil stress. But the institutional reflex remains sluggish – a dangerous mismatch between urgency and response.
Authorities must abandon business-as-usual thinking and reach for whatever measures this crisis demands, however desperate. That means immediate rationing of irrigation water, accelerated repair of leaky canals, stricter enforcement of groundwater usage limits, and aggressive public awareness campaigns around water conservation.
But more than that, it means acknowledging the full scope of the challenge – and responding to it with the seriousness it deserves.
Urban centres cannot afford to be spectators. Karachi, Hyderabad and Quetta – cities already stretched thin – will face mounting stress as rural shortages push migration inward. This is the time to fast-track investment in desalination, grey water recycling, and public-private partnerships to retrofit broken water systems. The political cost of delay will not be paid quietly.
And critically, this is not a crisis any one province can address in isolation. It demands national coordination. Water-sharing disputes, long a source of friction, must now give way to collective planning. A national drought response task force, empowered and equipped, should already be in place.
Climate change is not a future risk. It is shaping Pakistan’s reality now – through extreme weather, failing seasons, and shrinking resources. If policymakers continue to treat these events as isolated anomalies, the response will always arrive too late.
The PMD has raised the alarm. The question now is whether anyone in power is listening – and whether they are ready to act like it matters.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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