Pakistan to sign water treaty with Afghanistan

Islamabad: The Climate Change Ministry has a plan to safeguard Pakistan’s rights on trans-boundary water inflows according to international norms and conventions and explore the possibility of entering into a water treaty with Afghanistan to promote integrated watershed management including ecological conservation practices in uphill watersheds.

According to an official document, the ministry would also focus on the efforts to protect the glaciers by declaring them as ‘protected areas’ through agreements among countries sharing the Himalayan region.

The ministry would provide guidelines to the provinces to protect groundwater through management and technical measures such as regulatory frameworks, water licensing, slow action dams, artificial recharge especially for threatened aquifers, and adoption of integrated water resource management concepts.

It would help boost the efforts to ensure water distribution among provinces as far as possible in accordance with crop sowing timings. The documents showed that the efforts are already underway to enhance recycling of wastewater through proper treatment and its reuse and protection and preservation of water catchment areas and reservoirs against degradation, silting and irrigation system contamination.