Pakistan has about 1.2 million tube wells extracting 50 million acre feet of water every year for farm irrigation. NASA satellite maps show that Pakistan is among the places worst affected by rapid depletion of groundwater.
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| Water Stress Satellite Map Source: NASA |
A recent World Bank report titled "Groundwater in Pakistan’s Indus Basin : Present and Future Prospects" lays out the need for better groundwater management in Pakistan. Here are three key highlights of this reports:
1. Improved groundwater management is crucial for a healthy, wealthy, and green Pakistan. Pakistan’s Indus Basin Irrigation System is the largest artificial groundwater recharge system in the world, but the current water management paradigm doesn’t reflect it.
2. Over-abstraction, waterlogging and contamination threaten the crucial role of groundwater as a life-sustaining resource, which has cascading impacts on drought resilience, public health, and environmental sustainability.
3. For groundwater to remain a safe and reliable source of drinking water and a lifeline for tail-end farmers, a balance must be achieved between efficiency of the surface water system and sustainability of groundwater resources.
The World Bank report points to the need for better management of groundwater resources. One of the keys to groundwater management is to have an elaborate network of small dams and water reservoirs in strategic locations to recharge underground aquifers.
In recent years, Pakistan has begun to address its groundwater challenges, starting with the National Water Policy 2018 which identified priorities for groundwater management.The NWP supports significant increases in the public sector investment for the water sector by the Federal Government from 3.7% of the development budget in 2017-18 to at least 10% in 2018-19 and 20% by 2030; the establishment of an apex body to approve legislation, policies and strategies for water resource development and management, supported by a multi- sectoral Steering Committee of officials at the working level; and the creation of a Groundwater Authority in Islamabad and provincial water authorities in each of the provinces.
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8 comments:
Riaz Sahib
It is a huge problem. With Pakistan being a water scarce and water stresses country, ground acquirer is being fast depleted. I am afraid some day brackish and sweet water may just mingle ruining the entire acquirer.
Another equally major problem, besides the quantity, is the water quality. It has become so deteriorated that water in the canals is a source of disease. All untreated waste is discharged into rivers which smell foul and are fast becoming open sewers.
I can go on!
Rashid: "Another equally major problem, besides the quantity, is the water quality. It has become so deteriorated that water in the canals is a source of disease. All untreated waste is discharged into rivers which smell foul and are fast becoming open sewers"
Groundwater contamination is a particularly serious issue in coastal communities in Sindh where the seawater is intruding deeper into land.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319341934_Seawater_Intrusion_Land_Degradation_and_Food_Insecurity_Among_Coastal_Communities_of_Sindh_Pakistan
re: One of the keys to groundwater management is to have an elaborate network of small dams and water reservoirs in strategic locations to recharge underground aquifers.
the best way to recharge underground aquifers is to allow broad expanses of land to flood during the rainy season and thus have water infiltrate to the aquifer over the whole area, just the way it always had historically...but as rivers are channeled to prevent flooding, the areas where infiltration occurring are reduced, leading to aquifer depletion as water is withdrawn for agriculture, which is what is happening with the Ogallala aquifer in the US today...one hopes the Pakistanis do not repeat our mistakes...
The water pumped out,with the NPK and the Sun,and the Fissioning of Photosynthesis,converts into carbon - which is the agri plant - which is then burnt as agri waste,and the crop removed.In the burning process,the moisture in the plant is destroyed,and the dirt and smoke and carbon is released back into the atmos.
Rains will come and go,and no dam strategy will work,due to global warming and the experience of the Hindoos,in Maharashtra - where 10 Billion USD of Dams,have no water.
Lowering prices of cash crops and finding ingenious ways to reject the purchases or making the farming of that crop unviable - will CAUSE revolution and SPIKES IN PRICES (like in Sugar - for Cane)
So there is a Economic,Social,Security and Political Benefit,in the lowering Acquifiers.
ONLY SOLUTION,is Controlling the water from Kashmir and Kabul Basin,and THEN making LARGE DAMS and IRRIGATION CANALS,and raising the POWER TARRIFFS,FOR WATER PUMPS,IN SELECT AREAS.
For that,Pakistan and the PLA,have to take over Kashmir.
All else is a waste of time and money.For farmers,water if Oxygen.They 1st pump water,and then breathe.dindooohindoo
The main issue is "Over-population". Pakistan like India is having more people than it can handle. Until there is a balance of population (in fact, it must reduce), both countries will be in serious trouble. At least, in India the population growth has reduced greatly, unlike Pakistan.
The real problem is not recycling water and not using drip irrigation systems.
Storing floodwater to ensure availability for whole year
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/855127-storing-floodwater-to-ensure-availability-for-whole-year
Islamabad : The government is likely to approve an ambitious plan to store floodwater in existing fifteen natural lakes linked with wetlands that would be a nature-based solution of its own kind in the country.
A high official of the climate change ministry told this correspondent that an international organization has recently submitted a report that stated that Pakistan stored only 9 percent of floodwater and the remaining amount went down to the Arabian Sea.
He said “The report pointed out that the melting of glaciers starts in the northern region and monsoon arrives from the southern region. All this happens within 100 days so the flow of water can be turned towards the natural lakes that are part of the wetland sites.”
The official said the natural lakes linked with wetlands can provide enough storage capacity and considerably ensure availability of water throughout the year.
He said there are one million tubewells in Pakistan due to which the level of underground water has reduced in last few decades, adding “The plan will also help recharge aquifer and raise the level of underground water. The whole country will benefit from this plan that is likely to be approved soon by the federal cabinet.”
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam has said the government is finding out nature-based solutions to the issue of water storage in the country. He said: “We have received a report from an international organization and it has shown us a path to store floodwater in existing natural lakes.”
These natural lakes are currently losing their water level so the plan would not only restore them to their original status but also help raise the level of groundwater in Pakistan, he said.
#California Has Some of #America’s Richest Farmland. But What Is It Without #Water? California farmers are selling their water for profits instead of growing crops amid severe #drought. #ClimateCrisis #Drought2021 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/28/climate/california-drought-farming.html?smid=tw-share
n America’s fruit and nut basket, water is now the most precious crop of all.
It explains why, amid a historic drought parching much of the American West, a grower of premium sushi rice has concluded that it makes better business sense to sell the water he would have used to grow rice than to actually grow rice. Or why a melon farmer has left a third of his fields fallow. Or why a large landholder farther south is thinking of planting a solar array on his fields rather than the thirsty almonds that delivered steady profit for years.
“You want to sit there and say, ‘We want to monetize the water?’ No, we don’t,” said Seth Fiack, a rice grower here in Ordbend, on the banks of the Sacramento River, who this year sowed virtually no rice and instead sold his unused water for desperate farmers farther south. “It’s not what we prefer to do, but it’s what we kind of need to, have to.”
These are among the signs of a huge transformation up and down California’s Central Valley, the country’s most lucrative agricultural belt, as it confronts both an exceptional drought and the consequences of years of pumping far too much water out of its aquifers. Across the state, reservoir levels are dropping and electric grids are at risk if hydroelectric dams don’t get enough water to produce power.
Climate change is supercharging the scarcity. Rising temperatures dry out the soil, which in turn can worsen heat waves. This week, temperatures in parts of California and the Pacific Northwest have been shattering records.
By 2040, the San Joaquin Valley is projected to lose at least 535,000 acres of agricultural production. That’s more than a tenth of the area farmed.
And if the drought perseveres and no new water can be found, nearly double that amount of land is projected to go idle, with potentially dire consequences for the nation’s food supply. California’s $50 billion agricultural sector supplies two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts and more than a third of America’s vegetables — the tomatoes, pistachios, grapes and strawberries that line grocery store shelves from coast to coast.
Glimpses of that future are evident now. Vast stretches of land are fallow because there’s no water. New calculations are being made about what crops to grow, how much, where. Millions of dollars are being spent on replenishing the aquifer that has been depleted for so long.
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