Water shortage

According to some media reports, within a few years, Pakistan will most likely face the acute water shortage. It will be next to impossible for people to find enough water to meet their domestic needs. Under such circumstances, experts fear that there will be no water left for agricultural use. The country crossed the ‘water stress line’ in 1990 and the ‘water scarcity line’ in 2005. Subsoil water reservoirs sharply depleted during the 1980s and the 1990s due to exceeding over use. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough supply of water to fill those reservoirs back again. Pakistan’s total dependence on water from the River Indus makes it more vulnerable to water scarcity as the levels of rain water have been steadily declining.
The country’s underground water table is getting depleted at an accelerated rate. Water needs for agriculture and other domestic uses have increased a lot. Since no major effort has been done to increase the number of dams across the country, farmers have no other choice than to dig more tubewells and make use of the groundwater reservoir. If the prevailing trend continues, the country will have an irreversible water crisis within the next 10-15 years. The need of the hour is to construct additional reservoirs on an urgent basis.
Khan Faraz
Peshawar