Pakistan is ranked as the sixteenth most water-stressed country in the world with annual per capita water availability dropping from 5600 cubic meters in 1947 to 930 cubic meters in 2023 and is projected to reach absolute water scarcity by 2035 – less than nine years from today.
Reliance on the Indus River, a shrinking source, is further reducing the timeline when the country reaches absolute water scarcity.
Snow Update Report 2026 released by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMD) noted with reference to Indus Basin that “from a highest of 19.5 percent in 2020, the basin experienced a steep drop in snow persistence to 24.5 percent below the normal level in 2024. It is also the lowest that the basin has faced in the past twenty-four years.
The deficit continues in 2026, too, recorded at the level of 18.1 percent below normal. This decline is likely to exacerbate early summer water scarcity in a basin where nearly half of the run-off contributions come from meltwater. This threatens almost 300 million people and highlights the need for stronger water management strategies.”
Countries that rank lower than Pakistan in terms of being water stressed include Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain – countries with sufficient resources to have invested in desalination plants that cater to their populations though recent hits on these plants in the ongoing Middle East conflict (with threat of possibly more hits in the event of escalation) remains.
Desalination plants are an industrial facility that removes salts and minerals from seawater or brackish water to produce fresh drinkable water. They provide a drought proof supply for coastal areas using technologies like reverse osmosis (forcing water through membranes) or distillation (heating water) but they are energy intensive and produce concentrated brine as a by-product.
Egypt has 82 plants with a combined capacity of 917,000 cubic metres per day, Algeria 631 million cubic metres per year and Oman too relies on desalination plants.
Pakistan has several desalination plants but small scale facing operational challenges though with Chinese assistance a plant near Gwadar is producing 3000 tons of drinking water, solar complex in Mithi is designed to provide 8 million litres of drinking water every day, and a plant is under construction in Port Qasim, Karachi.
While desalination plants in coastal areas should be the way forward yet Pakistan also suffers from severe energy shortfalls especially during summer months with a power sector characterized by sustained inefficiency, forced to utilize fuel that is not cost efficient when hydel generation is reduced due to annual maintenance, and remains entangled in long-term contracts with Independent Power Producers (IPP) with a debilitating capacity payment clause.
Be that as it may, it is critical for the government to invest in storage facilities. In the current year’s budget, the government allocated 103 billion rupees to water resources division’s development budget against 133 billion rupees in 2025-26 and 224.5 billion rupees for construction of roads. It is critical that the government’s PSDP focus shifts from building roads to building reservoirs.
Research titled “Offseason agricultural encroachment in the uplands of Northern Pakistan: need for Sustainable Land management” noted the following: “Results showed that off-season agriculture has emerged as a cash-earning livelihood activity, largely adopted by decade-old and influential tenant communities….During the last few decades, this off-season agriculture regularly expanded from lower- to higher-elevation (2980–3800 m) areas, and extensively encroached on accessible pastoral areas in the bottomlands.
Cultivation of the two major vegetable crops, i.e., peas and potatoes, occurred on a total of 417.4 hectares of pastoral land, where pea cultivation predominantly occurred on 367.2 hectares and potato cultivation on 50.2 hectares of pastoral land…..repeated cultivation of the same crops, without crop rotation and land management practices, significantly reduced land productivity with time; the crop productivity was recorded to be the highest in the virgin cultivated land (pea: 1.8 tons/ha and potato: 14.8 tons/ha) and the lowest in the old-cultivated land (pea: 0.6 tons/ha and potato: 8.2 tons/ha).
As a result of this trend, farmers are abandoning unproductive agricultural land and subsequently starting cultivation in other marginal areas, even cultivating crops on steeper slopes beyond the permissible level (16°). These findings revealed that farmers have extensively used key pastoral areas for cultivation, and they have deprived landless pastoralists of their traditional grazing land in the uplands.
Furthermore, this agriculture encroachment imposed serious pressure on the pastoralists’ livelihoods and the upland ecosystem on which they rely. Therefore, policies and regulations that promote sustainable land management are much needed to ensure socio-economic equity and ecological integrity in the uplands of Northern Pakistan.”
The forgoing indicates two extremely disturbing trends that have been evident in this country for decades.
First, malfeasance by the influential/rich to increase income through off season agriculture as noted above – a trend that has violated the rationale behind sustainable land management leading to socio-income inequity and lack of ecological integrity.
And secondly, as noted in the Auditor General of Pakistan’s audit report 2025–26, there is “extensive financial mismanagement, weak governance, and deep-rooted inefficiencies within the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) and its attached entities.”
The report further warns that systemic flaws in planning, execution, and oversight are undermining the country’s water and energy security. And presented a troubling picture of institutional weaknesses across major organizations, including the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), Indus River System Authority (IRSA), Federal Flood Commission (FFC), Pakistan Commissioner for Indus Waters (PCIW), and Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR). “These entities collectively,” the report noted “handled expenditures of 359.6 billion rupees and receipts of 194.3 billion rupees…..The audit categorized irregularities into several areas, with financial management accounting for the highest number of cases, followed by contract management, procurement, asset management, human resources, project planning, and operational issues. This distribution underscores that governance challenges are widespread and deeply embedded across all functional domains.”
To conclude, Pakistan no longer has the luxury of time in deferring reforms in the water sector and must allocate the required funds as well as institute reforms, including punitive actions against those engaged in corruption - be it in the private or the public sector.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
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