Rethinking water governance in Pakistan

Poor urban water quality and lack of sanitation have become serious challenges for Pakistan

Being one of the top ten hotspots for climate change, Pakistan with its burgeoning population of 225 million, is at the brink of severe water scarcity. This growing water crisis has wide-ranging impacts with the potential to worsen relations with India and increase acrimony between the provinces due to lingering water sharing disputes. Lack of water availability does not only have the potential to fuel political discord, but it also has multiple adverse impacts on the lives of ordinary citizens.

Water scarcity is worsening the plight of poor farmers and making the lives of marginalised households in urban areas much more difficult. Lack of safe drinking water causes illnesses and compels people on tight budgets to pay for water to meet daily household needs. Women and girls, who shoulder the burden of fetching water for their families, are experiencing the brunt of this crisis.

The Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center and the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University consider poor urban water quality and lack of sanitation to be urgent challenges for Pakistan. Long neglected sewerage infrastructure in most Pakistani cities is causing contamination of drinking water supplies. Polluted drinking water has a direct impact on children’s health outcomes, including alarming stunting rates. Overall, 100,000 deaths per year in the country are directly attributed to water-borne diseases. Yet, little emphasis is being placed on the health costs of poor water and sanitation services due to the direct consumption of polluted drinking water by those without enough money to pay for bottled water. The use of toxic wastewater in agriculture is also mostly being ignored.

Pakistan does a dismal job in managing water needs given its existing water resources. The water sector in Pakistan has received massive loans and grants for improving water governance and developing water resources from international organizations such as the World Bank, USAID, and Asian Development Bank. Yet, water management remains not only mismanaged but also very inequitable. Besides the pending need to invest in urban water and sanitation infrastructure and expand these systems to burgeoning slum areas, the use of water in agriculture needs a major rethink, given that it uses up most of the freshwater available within the country.

Flat-rate irrigational water charges are insufficient to sustain operation and maintenance costs. The use of groundwater supplies has been mostly unregulated, allowing anyone with enough money to pay for powerful pumps and the electricity or diesel to run them, to suck up groundwater with reckless abandon. The use of flood irrigation and production of inappropriate and water-thirsty crops such as sugarcane may be lining the pockets of the local elite, but these unsustainable practices are compounding water scarcity and food insecurity at large. Scarce freshwater supplies can no longer be treated like an infinite commodity that can be monopolised and exploited by those with influence and resources.

The government’s plan to recharge the country’s aquifers appears to be a good idea. But it is about time that the obsession with building dams and reservoirs other top-down engineering-dominated solutions give way to more conservation-oriented and more equitable solutions to water use. The growing enthusiasm for precision agriculture technologies, such as moisture and electrochemical sensors or the use of drip irrigation, is expensive, and mostly richer farmers or agri-businesses can afford to adopt such technologies without government support.

Putting forth lofty water policies is not enough. Water governance in the country must be reimagined to prioritise water security for the people. Ill-conceived and elitist projects like the Ravi Riverfront City project must be set aside given the displacement and environmental damage they will cause. Efforts must be made instead to invest in improving and expanding the drinking water infrastructure and to meet the irrigational needs of smaller farmers to primarily improve food security, rather than trying to boost the export of cash crops.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 5^th, 2021.

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