World Water Day, on March 22 every year, is about focusing attention on the importance of water. This year’s theme was ‘Water and Climate Change’. It merits a mention that higher and extreme temperatures and less predictable weather conditions are projected to affect the availability and distribution of rainfall, snowmelt, river flows and groundwater. According to a research study in 2016 (Managing Water Scarcity in Pakistan: Moving Beyond Rhetoric), Pakistan crossed the water scarcity line during 2005 and, if the situation continues, the country will touch the absolute water scarcity line by 2025. According to a report published by the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) last year, Pakistan is dependent on a single source – the Indus River and its tributaries – where about 84 percent of the total inflow is received in three monsoon months and the rest 16 percent during the remaining nine months. With the increased climate change, the wet seasons are becoming more wet and dry seasons drier.
In view of the above, there is an urgent need to construct new reservoirs so as to replenish the depleting capacity and transfer water from the wet seasons to the dry seasons. The country has lost more than 90 MAF of water during the floods of 2010, 2012 and 2014, besides their devastating effects on infrastructure, crops, livestock and humans.
Khan Faraz
Peshawar