Multi-dimensional approach needed over water crisis

Pakistan faces serious water shortages, but the problem is not a lack of available solutions. It is the continued reliance on a narrow set of approaches, mainly dams, canals and short-term fixes that no longer match today's realities.

Pakistan's water crisis is not just an engineering challenge but also an environmental one. Floods and droughts are now occurring more frequently and in closer succession. At the same time, poor conservation, pollution and wasteful practices have compounded the country's water stress, with per capita water availability falling sharply. Yet public discourse continues to frame this crisis primarily as a problem of storage and control, rather than as a need to fundamentally rethink water use.

With the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance, Pakistan must prioritise conserving and managing water domestically. While several dams are under construction, they alone cannot address deeper structural mismanagement.

Beyond severely polluting its freshwater sources, Pakistan also loses a staggering amount of water each year. This is largely because natural systems that once regulated water, including floodplains, wetlands, forests and recharge zones, have been degraded or built over.

Heavy rainfall now increasingly falls on deforested hills, paved cities and constricted river channels, causing water to run off rapidly rather than infiltrate the ground. Rivers rise more quickly and overflow into settlements as floodplains have diminished. Once floodwaters recede, little is retained for drier months. Large dams cannot fully address this problem. In Pakistan's climate, reservoirs steadily lose capacity due to sedimentation and high evaporation, reducing their reliability as climate variability intensifies.

Environmental approaches to water management receive inadequate attention, despite strong evidence of their effectiveness. Wetlands, floodplains, riverbank forests and vegetated catchments naturally slow water flows, reduce flood peaks and facilitate groundwater recharge.

The Recharge Pakistan initiative recognises these principles by focusing on restoring wetlands, managing hill torrents and protecting floodplains. Such efforts can complement broader Indus basin restoration initiatives such as the Living Indus Initiative, which seeks to shift emphasis away from reliance on concrete infrastructure alone toward integrating natural systems with engineered solutions. Implementation of such initiatives has thus far been slow, but if effectively carried out, they could help reduce flood risk while improving water availability.

Urban areas also must do more to contend with the water crisis. Larger cities like Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi face repeated flooding even as groundwater levels continue to fall, due to lack of effective regulation. Rainwater harvesting could significantly reduce runoff and supplement urban water supply. Yet building codes rarely require such measures, and rainwater is still treated as a drainage problem rather than as a precious resource.

Agriculture remains the largest source of water use, consuming more than 90 per cent of all freshwater available in the country. Research indicates that laser land leveling, drip irrigation and changes in crop choices could reduce water use substantially without compromising agricultural production. Yet, such measures often face limited political support due to entrenched vested interests, including influential agricultural and industrial lobbies such as those linked to the sugar industry.

To achieve greater resilience, Pakistan must combine water storage efforts with floodplain protection, ecosystem restoration, urban rainwater harvesting and more efficient farming practices. Water scarcity is no longer a temporary challenge. Beyond policy documents, water management implementation must therefore reflect this reality and adapt accordingly.