Pakistan is running out of water so fast that the shortage will strangulate all water-based economic activity by 2015, a Pakistani thinktank says. And that pretty much covers 70 percent of the population who are involved in farming.
This is not a new warning. In recent months, as this blog itself has noted, experts have painted an increasingly bleak scenario of Pakistan’s rivers drying up, the ground water polluted and over-exploited and the whole water infrastructure in a shambles.
But Pakistan, as the Islamabad-based Centre for Research and Security Studies says, is not listening. Pakistan has gone from a “water scarce” country to a “water-stressed” country, worse than Ethiopia, the Centre says quoting a 2006 World Bank study. In 10 years time, it will become a water-famine country.
Among the 25 most populous countries, South Africa, Egypt and Pakistan are the most water-limited nations, that study said.
According to the World Bank data, Pakistan only stores 30 days of river water, India stores 120 days, while the Colorado river system in the U.S. has storage capacity of up to 900 days of water usage.
The depletion of water resources is unchecked, as the 2009 UN World Water Development Report points out. It says that the total actual renewable water resources in Pakistan decreased from 2,961 cubic metres per capita in 2000 to 1,420 cubic metres in 2005. A more recent study indicates an available supply of water of little more than 1,000 cubic metres per person.
India and China are not far behind in this plunder of water, with only 1,600 and 2100 cubic metres per person per year. Which as the South Asia Investor Review points out is itself cause for serious concern, as it raises the spectre of wars over water in the future.
Just to put the numbers in relation to that for the rest of the world, major European countries have up to twice as much renewable water resources per capita, ranging from 2,300 (Germany) to 3,000 (France) cubic metres per person per year.
The United States, on the other hand, has far greater renewable water resources than China, India or major European countries: 9,800 cubic meters per person per year. By far the largest renewable water resources are reported from Brazil and the Russian Federation - with 31,900 and 42,500 cubic meters per person per year.
How did it get here? Pakistan is one of the world’s most arid countries, with an average rainfall of under 240 mm a year as this detailed backgrounder in Pakistan’s Daily Times points out.
The population and the economy are heavily dependent on an annual influx into the Indus river system (including the Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej rivers) of about 180 billion cubic meters of water, that emanates from India and is mostly derived from snow-melt in the Himalayas.
But this single river system on which Pakistan almost entirely relies has been heavily harvested and there is no additional water to be injected into system.
Paksitan needs to conserve its water, use it more wisely and set up new reservoirs on an urgent basis, the South Asia Investor says. Or else the threat posed to the nation’s stability by the battle for water may yet turn out be just as serious as the militants trying to take control.
[Photographs of dried up lake in Islamabad and a well in Baluchistan]
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It is the matter of our survival
- Posted by Nazim Shahzad WarraichWater may not be the only problem facing Pakistan and SE Asian regions.
Pakistan to lend 700,000 acres farmland to Arab states (Dawn, 03/09/2009).
If these lands are used to grow food, then this food will be shipped off to the Arab states and not to Pakistan. Where will the water come from to irrigate the soil? Will the Arabs bring bottled water?
I know that Qatar has ‘bought’ a HUGE, fertile region of Kenya that has rivers. This will displace the indigenous people of that region. However, will these people benefit from this sale of land on which their ancestors have farmed for generations?
- Posted by bulletfish@Shutting off the tap on Pakistan is not an option; neither from a political stand point, nor from a moral one. Politically, India would lose it’s reputation & the goodwill, which it has gained in the world comity over the years. It would simply be an act of war.
-posted by Mortal
–How about reducing to trickle/shutting off water in case of Pakistan imposes war on India?
- Posted by rajeev“I think its about time our politicians grew a spine and cancelled the IWT.What are the Pakis gonna do?” - Posted by sameer
Shutting off the tap on Pakistan is not an option; neither from a political stand point, nor from a moral one. Politically, India would lose it’s reputation & the goodwill, which it has gained in the world comity over the years. It would simply be an act of war. Morally, it just won’t be right to punish 170 million for the crimes & sins of a few. Having said that, I can also say with utmost certainty that if the shoe was on the other foot & Pakistan was in control of the rivers flowing through India, it would’ve turned off the tap on numerous occasions & that’s exactly why India shouldn’t do it because it should never act belligerently or recklessly like Pakistan. I am a strong believer in Karma. Today, India, as a nation is reaping the fruits of it’s past Karma & Pakistan is paying the price for it’s own actions. It’s probably the oldest cliche out there but what goes around, eventually does come around.
- Posted by Mortal@Sameer
It isn’t Pakistan’s fault that India is overpopulated and needs to grow food for its enormous and still growing population. Pakistan needs its water.
- Posted by Aamir AliI think its about time our politicians grew a spine and cancelled the IWT.What are the Pakis gonna do?
- Posted by sameerLet me guess NUKES! This is becoming a bit like the boy who cried wolf besides Pakis won’t commit national suicide over a bit less water and they have given the NUKE blank threat so many times its more funny than scary now.
There can a be a agreement that states that India is obliged to give Pakistan x,y,z quantity of food in lieu of the less water post IWT cancellation this is because Indian agricultural productivity is 3 times that of Pakistan per unit hectare i.e for the same amount of precious water our farms can produce at least twice the quantity of wheat,rice etc(plz check FAO website)this is because of better seeds,fertilizers,soil management,mechanization and pre and post harvest infrastructure.
“A special place in climate hell is being reserved for India and China. That is, they will suffer more from global warming than, for instance, Western Europe.”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/213967
“Standing on principle is laudable, not to mention catnip for domestic audiences who resent being told by SUV-driving Americans to cut CO2 emissions. But the stance has one little downside. A special place in climate hell is being reserved for India and China. That is, they will suffer more from global warming than, for instance, Western Europe. In part, that reflects the fact that nature always batters the poor more than the rich, as Hurricane Katrina showed. The rich can afford to move, build sea walls, turn on the AC, and buy more expensive food; the poor starve, drown in typhoons, see their shanties swept away in tidal surges, and die in the heat waves and disease outbreaks that will become more common in a mercury-rising world.
But India and China are also in line to suffer disproportionately because of how climate change is affecting different geographic regions. For instance, more of China and India—especially in the north—will broil (by which I mean experience median temperature increases of 8 or 9 degrees Fahrenheit) than Western Europe will, according to the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As patterns of rainfall shift to more deluges as well as more droughts due to the when-it-rains-it-pours phenomenon that global warming causes, both countries will also suffer more floods. Indeed, China’s south and west are already experiencing a sevenfold increase in deluges compared with the 1950s. And both countries will need to increase irrigation more than the world average of 1 to 3 percent by the 2020s—up to 15 percent in China and 5 percent in India. Pacific cyclones are expected to become more severe, with stronger winds and Noachian rainfall.”
- Posted by rajeevIndia & China are not any better. Read this
- Posted by rajeevhttp://www.newsweek.com/id/213967
Water shortages and outages are going to seriously affect the entire planet unless governments act boldly to fight global warming.
Does anyone need more signs that climate change is already impacting the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands?
- Posted by Marcus Vinicius Pinto SchtrukAdding to the previous posting. While Pakistan suffers water woes, it continues to upgrade its missile capabilities, to point all its weapons on India.
Please read TIME magazine article.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0 ,8599,1919648,00.html
Last I checked, missiles, don’t quench the thirst of a thirsty man.
- Posted by Global WatcherMortal, you said:
“Will Pakistan ever give up it’s slimy ways?
“U.S. Accuses Pakistan of illegally Altering Missiles” - NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/world/ asia/30missile.html?_r=1&hp”
–>The UK has the same story.
Sanjeev, new topic:
“Why should the world trust anything that Pakistan says?”
Pakistan continues its lackluster fight against Islamic Militants, while it maintains a huge army presence against India, for no reason, but to demonize India and for the army to justify its largely parastic footprint on the heads of average un-informed Pakistani’s.
While the money beggar bowl is out, and water is running out, Pakistan contintues to make nukes out of IMF money and reverse engineering weapons to use against India, while its own people starve and its economy is in shambles and Pakistan has the gaul to try dictating to the U.S. that any AID should be unconditional with no strings attached and at the same time, U.S. soldiers are being massacred in Afghanistan by the Pakistani nurtured Taliban.
Anything wrong with the picture here? What place does Pakistan have dictating any terms to anybody?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew s/asia/pakistan/6118196/US-accuses-Pakis tan-of-illegally-modifying-weapons-for-u se-against-India.html
- Posted by Global WatcherThe water crisis is not just a political, environmental issue, it is also a social one. Responsibility cannot just be placed on the shoulders of the state, Pakistanis as a nation, especially in the modern urban centres and cities also need to understand and be aware of the alarming nature of this situation and act ethically. It IS time to stop washing that car and watering that lawn every day, not to mention taking those long showers and baths.
- Posted by Sarah Siddiq