Water Scarcity
The word ‘Scarcity’ was derived from ‘escarte’, it is an old Northern French word and it explained the “time-bound situation that has arisen from the crop failure and inadequate supplies of good necessary food for life”. Afterwards, this word has been applied to various issues and kinds of scarcity such as real or artificial, supply and demand of goods, natural resources, etc. Water scarcity can be defined as “conditions where water demand exceeds over water supply”.
Around Four billion people, comprising 2/3rd of the world’s population, face severe water scarcity crises at least one month a year. It was found that around 2 million people are living in water-stressed countries. By early 2025, half of the world’s population will be residing in water-scarce areas. Due to this, 700 billion people will migrate by 2030. By 2040, approximately 1 in 4 children worldwide will be living in extremely water-stressed areas.
Stage of Water Scarcity and Pakistan
Visser (2015) has described the four stages that lead to water scarcity. The stages term as normal situations, indications of water shortages, actual water shortages, and potential crises.
In 1960, Pakistan was in the first stage which means water was in surplus i.e., almost 6000 cubic meters per capita. In 1990, it touched the water stress line. In the second stage, water availability per person was 1000 cubic meters in 2005, it was 5,600 cubic meters in 1947. The Indus River basin is considered one of the great sources of groundwater. It comprises 16 million hectares of underground water; out of it, 6 million hectares of water are fresh water and 10 million hectares are salines. In 2005, it was found that the underground aquifer was reduced to 10 MAF as compared to 50 MAF at the time of independence. Now, Pakistan is approaching the fourth stage where water shortage is increasing it was 11% in 2004, will be 30% in 2022 and will reach 31% by 2025. Nonetheless, Pakistan will be the 23rd water-stressed country globally by 2040.
Indicators that Reflect Water Scarcity and Pakistan
There are four indicators that will reflect the situation of water scarcity in Pakistan.
Falkenmark Indicator (1989)
It shows the relationship between water availability and the human population. It stated that countries having water resources less than 1700 m3 are water-stressed, if it falls below 1000 m3 per capita are water scare countries and if it falls below 500m3 then, the country would face water scarcity. At the time of independence, water availability was 5,600 m3 per capita and currently, it is 1,017 m3 per capita. This has shown that Pakistan’s water availability is already decreased up to 400% and by 2025 it reaches to water scarcity line.
Water Resource Vulnerability Index (WRVI) (1997)
This Indicator would measure the comparison between the annual availability of water with total annual withdrawal. There will be water scarcity in a country if the annual withdrawal is between 20 -40%. In 2018, the WRVI was 77% and in the present situation, The total groundwater withdrawal is 83% of the total water available. Pakistan has been considered among 36 water-stressed countries.
Physical and Economic Water Scarcity Indicator (1998)
Under this indicator, physical water scarcity occurs when countries are not able to meet the demand for water by 2025, even after accounting for the future adaptive capacity. Economic water scarcity occurs when a country has abundant renewable resources but would not have significant investment so that these resources are available to the people. The Government of Pakistan has found that the water shortage was 11% in 2004 and it will be 34% in 2025. In May 2022, only Sindh has a water shortfall of 34%, as the demand for water is 40,000 cusecs and it has water resources of only 29,000 cusecs. With the increase in population, the demand for water and food is also increasing, as per the World Food Programme (WFP) 43% of the population is food insecure and of these 18% are suffering from acute food insecurity. To moderate the food insecurity impact due to the increase in water scarcity, the government has to invest in building dams and improving the irrigation systems. Asian Development Banks 2022, has given $ 270 million in loans to Pakistan for the construction of the new Khanki Barrage on River Chenab.
Water Poverty Index
It can be estimated into five components i.e., access to water, water quality, quantity and variability, water uses for domestic, food, and productive purposes, the capacity of water management, and environmental aspects. In Pakistan, only 20% of the population has access to safe drinking water and the remaining 80% are forced to use unsafe drinking water due to the scarcity of healthy and safe water. The underground water of cities is contaminated and full of chlorine, turbidity, and other chemicals. In Sindh, two districts have 100% contaminated water i.e., Mirpurkhas and Shaheed Benazirabad. The monitoring of the water quality of 28 cities has shown that available water contains bacteriological contamination (39%), arsenic (8%), nitrate (4%), fluoride (4%), etc. The available underground water is contaminated in major cities such as 38% in Rawalpindi, and Islamabad, 59% in Faisalabad, 63% in Quetta, 31% in Lahore, etc.
Why Pakistan is Approaching Towards Water Scarcity?
There is the various reason for the increased water scarcity in Pakistan which are as follows:
Increase in Population
Pakistan is the fifth largest populated country. From July 1950 to July 2020, its population increased by six times. Its annual birth rate is 2.8. With the increase in population, the demand for water has also increased. It was measured that demand for water could reach up to 274 million and supply would remain at 191 million acre-feet by 2025.
Agriculture Sector Consumes More Water
Most of the crops that are cultivated in our country depended on water such as wheat, rice, and sugarcane. It was estimated that the four major crops use 80% of Pakistan’s water resources, i.e., cotton, rice, wheat, and sugarcane, and their contribution to GDP is only 5%. The major reason behind the water losses in the agriculture sector is poor water management systems. Approximately, 61% of the water loss is due to inefficient irrigation systems.
Climate Change
Pakistan gets its water from rivers, melting glaciers, and rainfall. Pakistan’s hydrologic resources are depleting due to rising temperatures, due to heat glaciers will melt and it would increase the threat of flood, intense rainfall, changes in the pattern of winter and monsoon rainfall, etc.
Insufficient Water Storage
One of the major reasons for water scarcity is the inadequate water storage capacity of Pakistan. During floods, Pakistan has lost more than 120 BCM of water due to a lack of available storage capacity. Currently, the storage capacity of Pakistan is merely 9% in the three main reservoirs, and the world has 40%. The capacity is depreciating by 0.27 BCM per year due to sedimentation in the reservoirs.
Inefficient Irrigation System
Overall efficiency of the irrigation management system is 40%. More than 60% of the water is lost during the conveyance and irrigation process. For instance, 142 BCM of water is available in the head canal and only 55 BCM has reached to field remaining 87 BCM is lost in the process of conveyance.
Poor Water Governance
Pakistan’s first National Water Policy 2018 is not compact. It has flaws such as no attention being given to the water-sensitive urban design, risk management during natural hazards, substitute crops that require less water and it is lacking an implementation plan.
How to Combat Water Scarcity?
The government must have to encourage private and participatory in the development of efficient and sustainable irrigation systems. This mechanism was practised in the 1980s which only focus on physical targets and excluded capacity building. This system has created an elite and poor water accessibility gap. This can be a good initiative if government devises such policies which ensure equitable access to water among all income strata and give more importance to capacity building. Moreover, to improve the irrigation framework IoT sensors can be used to detect water inflows and outflows in dams, canals, and barrages.
The issue of water scarcity can be combated if a drainage-type Lysimeter will be used to measure the total evapotranspiration and average crop coefficient as it was found that this process would help find out the water requirement of crops and save a lot of water. Pakistan needs a smarter Soil Moisture Sensor System that reads the moisture level of soil and detects the areas and amount of water required for irrigation. In 2021, this system saved 161,011 m3 of water in Pakistan.
Consumers can take responsibility at the individual level. Consumers could be mindful of their water wasteful habits and adopt responsible behaviour in saving water. For example, consumers can use cheap home-based technologies for recycling and conserving water such as using salt, water, and electricity to produce chlorine that helps in killing bacteria and recycling the water. Moreover, pricing on water usage could also discourage water loss in the domestic and agriculture sectors.
Final Verdict
It is clearly depicting that Pakistan is moving towards a severe water crisis. It is almost reached the fourth stage i.e., potential water crises. As per Falkenmark Indicator, currently, Pakistan is a water-scarce country. It was anticipated that in the next six months the country would face a 30% water shortage and it was predicted that the water demand and supply gap would reach 31% by 2025. However, in May 2022 it is reported that water inflows in dams in nearly equal to outflows such as the Tarbela dam inflow were 95,700 cusecs and 90,000 cusec outflow. Sindh and Balochistan are already facing mild drought conditions as 0.01 mm of rain was recorded in the first two weeks of May 2022 and there will be no rain prediction in the coming month. Government and civil society must work together to combat the water crisis situation.
This article is written by Sehrish Irfan. Sehrish is a research analyst at the Iqbal Institute of Policy Studies (IIPS).
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