PESHAWAR: The world is observing March 22 as World Water Day to underline the significance of freshwater, but in Pakistan which is facing serious water scarcity challenges the day goes unnoticed like other international days.
As mentioned, the water day is observed to highlight the importance of clean drinking water or freshwater across the globe and is used to advocate for the sustainable management of the water resources.
Pakistan is being confronted with serious challenges in this regards, including industrialization and demands for agriculture.
Some of the challenges that Pakistan is currently facing are depleted and more and more salty groundwater, rapid urbanisation and long dry spell that some time caused drought like situation in parts of the country.
According to WaterAid, 21, 640, 407 people in Pakistan are living without any access to clean drinking water.
Also, 88.5 per cent of the people in the country have no access to clean drinking water close to home.
In Pakistan, the disparity between the rich and poor people is quite visible in terms of their access to clean drinking water.
Almost all the richest people, 98 per cent, of the country are stated to have access to clean water. And on other hand, clean water in the country is at the reach of only 79.2 per cent of the poorest people.
Also, Pakistan ranks eighth position in the top 10 countries that with lowest access to clean water close to home.
Interestingly, Pakistan’s arch-rival, India is on top in the list.
This year, 2018 theme is nature for water as water is worldwide considered an essential building block of life, more than to quench thirst or protect health.
This year’s theme explores how nature can be used to overcome the water challenges of the 21st century.
According to WaterAid, over 663 million people living without a safe water supply close to home, spending countless hours queuing or trekking to distant sources, and coping with the health impacts of using contaminated water.
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 is focusing on availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by 2030.
Already more than 60 per cent of humanity lives in areas of water stress, where the supply of water cannot or will not continue to meet demand.
If water is not managed more prudently - from source, to tap, and back to source - the crises observed today will become the catastrophes oftomorrow.
This year’s The State of the World’s Water reveals that the number of people defined as without clean water close to home has gone up, with new entries in ranking.
Some 844 million people are now struggling to access life’s most essential requirement - almost 200 million more than previously counted.
Statisticians now record both what source people obtain their water from and how far they travel for it.
