Islamabad needs an integrated groundwater management plan

Islamabad is often described as Pakistan's best-planned city. Yet if one were to compile a list of the greatest threats facing its future, the water crisis would undoubtedly rank at the top. Unfortunately, this issue has not yet received due attention. There is a well-known story that the initial plan for Islamabad did not provide sites for masjids and graveyard. A member of the federal legislature from East Pakistan, AK Fazlul Huq, remarked in the Assembly: "It appears that no Muslim will live in this city, and no one will die."

The apparent lack of seriousness among the responsible authorities, toward the looming water crisis in the capital is deeply alarming. If Fazlul Huq were alive today, he might well remark: "It once appeared that no one would die in this city. Now it appears that no one will be able to live here."

The city's population continues to grow, new housing societies are emerging and commercial activities are expanding. However, there appears to be no comprehensive and coordinated strategy to address the increasing pressure on groundwater resources.

Ensuring water supply for the growing population has always been, and remains, a fundamental necessity. The question, however, is whether our priorities reflect this reality. Did Islamabad need a modern metro bus system before it needed a comprehensive water security plan? This is not merely a political question; it concerns the fundamental principles of development planning and serves as a telling example of governance challenges.

With limited development funds at hand, only after rigorous professional evaluation should development projects be selected. In such a situation, can the city administration and the federal government justify placing the implementation of a comprehensive water supply and water security plan on the back burner when it addresses one of the most essential needs of Islamabad's residents?

Islamabad's water supply comes primarily from two sources: surface water and groundwater. Surface water is mainly supplied through Simly Dam and Khanpur Dam, while thousands of public and private tube wells extract groundwater. The problem is that groundwater extraction is increasingly exceeding the natural recharge capacity of aquifers, and groundwater levels are steadily declining.

When water-bearing rock formations are excessively depleted, the pore spaces within them can become compressed under overburden pressure and could close permanently, irreversibly degrading aquifer's storage capacity. Therefore, groundwater must be utilised according to a carefully designed management plan.

Research studies and government reports indicate that groundwater levels in several areas of Islamabad have been continuously declining. At places, declines exceed one meters per year. Wells that yielded water at shallower depths a few years ago have either dried up or experience significant productivity reduction.

One of the major causes of this situation is the uncontrolled drilling of tube wells, without comprehensive planning. Today, thousands of private boreholes exist across Islamabad's sectors, in private housing societies and commercial buildings. In most cases, no hydrogeological study was conducted prior to installation, no assessment of aquifer capacity was carried out, and no evaluation of the overall water balance was performed. Consequently, we continue extracting groundwater, without any comprehensive accounting regarding the cumulative impact on groundwater reserves.

This situation calls for appropriate legislation. Drilling of boreholes should require prior approval from relevant institutions. Based on their technical knowledge of groundwater resource, these institutions should be able to provide guidance for proper and sustainable groundwater development.

It is common in Potohar that a borehole may intersect a productive fracture system or isolated sand lens and encounter substantial groundwater reserves, while a borehole drilled on the adjacent plot may fail entirely because such features are absent. Hence, drilling without conducting geophysical probes, significantly increases the risk of unsuccessful boreholes.

The most significant challenge in managing Islamabad's groundwater is that different parts of the city are underlain by different hydrogeological systems, yet groundwater management is often approached as though the entire city shares the same conditions. The fractured limestone and sandstone aquifers exposed in Margalla Hills and buried under thick alluvial sediments across

Islamabad, the gravel, sand and conglomerate aquifers in central Islamabad, and the Siwalik sandstone aquifers found in B-17, Sangjani and surrounding areas differ substantially in their geological characteristics and sustainable yields. Consequently, a single management approach for the entire city is unlikely to be effective and cannot ensure the long-term sustainable use of groundwater resources. The solution to Islamabad's water challenge does not lie in drilling additional tube wells but rather in implementing an 'Integrated Groundwater Management Programme'.

It is also important to note that several institutions, including the Capital Development Authority (CDA), WASA, the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), the Ministry of Water Resources and various universities are actively engaged in water-related research work. However, the level of coordination among these efforts appears to be weak. There is a clear need for a unified 'Islamabad Water Security Authority' or an integrated institutional framework capable of ensuring coordination, policy implementation and effective collaboration among all stakeholders.

The real question for Islamabad is not whether a water crisis will occur, but when we will begin preparing for it. If we continue to allow unregulated groundwater extraction, watershed degradation and unscientific planning, water scarcity could become a serious threat to the city's economic, social and environmental development in the years ahead. Many important cities around the world have already experienced similar crises. It would be wise to act before conditions become more severe.