Out of water

Since 2015, the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Risk Report has consistently ranked water crises as among the global threats with the greatest potential impact – above natural disasters, mass migration and cyber attacks. Across the densely-populated Indo-Gangetic Plain – home to more than 600 million people in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – groundwater is being pumped out at an unsustainable and terrifying rate. More than half of the water in the same basin is undrinkable and unusable for irrigation due to elevated salt and arsenic levels, according to a recent study.

Groundwater provides drinking water to the majority and accounts for more than 40 percent of water used for irrigation. However, underground aquifers do not fill up swiftly, as a reservoir does after a heavy rain. According to UN’s climate science panel, for each degree of global warming, about seven percent of the world’s population will have 20 percent less freshwater. Climate changes caused by humans are driving changes in our water resources and demands. As climate change worsens, impacts on water resources will also worsen.

Khan Faraz

Peshawar