Informing humanitarians worldwide 24/7 — a service provided by UN OCHA

Pakistan

Pakistan: Focus on water crisis

ISLAMABAD, 29 January (IRIN) - Pakistani farmer Ehsan Ahmed floods his entire field before sowing a crop, just as his father and grandfather did, believing that this kind of age-old irrigation method will produce a better crop.
No! say Pakistani water experts.

The problem is not only that too much water is not good for the crop but that the water thus wasted is in short supply. Water availability per person in Pakistan today is 1,000 cubic metres, down from 5,600 cubic metres per person in 1947, the year that the country gained independence from Britain. There were about 35 million people in Pakistan in 1947. Today there are nearly 140 million, but water availability has remained the same.

"I need water for properly irrigating my fields before tilling the soil for sowing wheat seeds," 35 year-old Ahmed told IRIN in a field in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) town of Mardan. "The more water I give to the soil, the better it will be," he said. Unless the fallacy of this outdated custom is exposed without delay, the adverse effects resulting from it could cost Pakistan dear.

This widespread practice among the farming community is already ringing alarm bells for water experts in Pakistan, still affected by the effects of a three-year drought.

"When Pakistan was created, our water resources were the same as they are today - about 138 million acre feet [the volume of water that would cover an area of one acre to the depth of one foot]," Muhammad Akram Kahlown, chairman of Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

"Water availability did not increase, but demand for water and the population just kept on increasing, and farming practices never changed," he said.

So now his office is telling farmers that flood irrigation is wasteful, and ineffective for increasing crop yields, because it washes away rich topsoil. Instead Kahlown is promoting drip irrigation and pivot-sprinkling systems, which could save up to 80 percent of irrigation water consumption. Water has now become a precious resource, the conservation and efficient utilisation of which the government is actively reviewing.

"Agriculture is using 95 percent of our total water, the remaining four to five percent for drinking and industrial use. As long as we do not use it more efficiently in the farms it will not make any impact on the overall water use," Kahlown warned. But, "even though there is drought, farmers still use flood irrigation", he added.

Experts predict that one out of three people in Pakistan will face critical water shortages if the prevailing trends of high consumption rates, inadequate rainfall and an annual population growth of four million persist.

RAINS AND DROUGHT

Pakistan is still reeling from three years of drought, and prospects for good, above-normal rainfall are bleak.

Dr Qamar-Uz-Zaman Chaudhry, the director-general of Pakistan's Meteorological Department, told IRIN that 10 percent to 20 percent below normal rains were expected this winter. This in itself, however, should not have a major impact on agriculture, the mainstay of Pakistan's economy.

Pakistan suffered from severe drought from 1998 until mid-2001, when normal rainfall during last summer's monsoon replenished supplies. Drought turned millions of hectares of cultivable land in the southern provinces of Sindh and Baluchistan into parched wasteland, forcing thousands of people to relocate. The resulting decline in agricultural production had a significant impact on Pakistan's economy.

Zaman said the period from October to December was generally not a rainy time in Pakistan, but last year it had been drier than usual. "Now it's the winter rainy period, i.e. January to March, a time when most of our northern areas and catchment areas receive rainfall and snowfall. We are expecting that, during this period rainfall, is likely to be slightly below normal - 10 to 20 percent below normal on an all-Pakistan basis," he said.

Zaman and other government officials have said the impact of the drought remained effective, with water levels at key reservoirs below normal. Mangla dam in Punjab Province and Tarbela dam in the NWFP are the country's main sources of water for irrigation and hydroelectric power. During the last monsoon, although Tarbela reached its full capacity, Mangla remained about six metres below capacity.

Zaman said although Pakistan was passing through a "dry decade", in which there would be less than normal rainfall most seasons, he didn't envisage further drought. "I don't think drought will come back," he said.

Wet seasons during the years preceding the drought which began in 1998 had produced higher than average rainfall, but what followed signalled the start of a prolonged dry period, according to Zaman. "Therefore, there is definitely a necessity that we should plan for this dry period," he added. Careful planning based on accurate weather predictions has saved Pakistan's agriculture-dependent economy millions of dollars in the past.

RESERVOIRS

One solution is the development of reservoirs. At least six new dams are planned to be built over the next 20 years. However, in the short term, the situation of the country's two largest reservoirs is far from satisfactory.

"On the average, we have inflows of 146 million acre feet of water in normal years, but for the last three years it is a drought-like situation. Last year, our shortage of water was 25 to 30 percent. During this Rabi [winter crop season] it is about 50 percent short," Riaz Ahmed Khan, chairman of the Federal Flood Commission of Pakistan, told IRIN.

"In normal years we use about 35 million acres of water during Rabi, but this year only 18 million is available," he said. Part of the problem was the shortage of water in the Mangla and Tarbela dams, he explained.

Mangla Dam's capacity to store water is 1,202 ft, and the dead level is 1,040 ft - the level reached after which water is not withdrawn to avert the silting up of the power tunnels. Tarbela's maximum level is 1,560 ft, and the dead level is 1,369 ft. Both the dams are short of water, and if rains are not timely, disaster could befall the country's irrigation network.

Experts say Pakistan's vast irrigation network - comprising three main reservoirs, 19 dams, 43 main canals and a conveyance length of 57,000 km - is ageing and highly inefficient.

Riaz Ahmed Khan said Pakistan pumps 106 million acre feet of water into the canals. Almost 36 million acre feet are lost to seepage, which in turn causes waterlogging, rendering the land uncultivable.

Pakistani officials say that with financial assistance from the World Bank and other multilateral sources the government is working on a drainage project to address this problem within the next few years.

GROUND WATER

In addition to rivers and rain, Pakistan also has abundant ground water, but this is being over-exploited.

Kahlown said 45 million acre feet of water are added to the irrigation system from the ground water available in the country. But during the last three years massive pumping out of ground water had taken place.

"If there are no rains soon, we will be in bad shape. In the past, a tube well which used to work for four hours, now pumps water out 20 hours a day," he said, adding that this practice was unsustainable.

"Of the 565,000 total tube wells in Pakistan, nearly 70 percent are now pumping hard water or saline water, because sweet water has been exhausted. If the drought persists for a year or so, it will mean that there will be more pressure on these tube wells," he said.

Many water experts have warned the government that the exploitation of fossil water in the southern Baluchistan Province could lead to a disaster. Water is not found until a depth of 1,000 ft is reached in parts of Baluchistan, reflecting that the water table is declining rapidly.

Environmental experts suggest that the levels of Baluchistan's underground aquifers were dropping at a rate of 3.5 metres annually, and will run out in 15 years, resulting in massive internal displacements.

Kahlown, who agrees that water exploitation in Baluchistan is massive, said the provincial government had restricted construction of new tube wells - a promising sign.

"There are many areas in Pakistan where the quality of water is quite uniform and also sweet. There are still sizeable areas with good water. Sweet water underground is about 5 million acres, which is a major resource. But you cannot extract it through normal means," he added.

Kahlown said his office had developed a special tube well, which only skims the upper levels of ground water so as to extract sweet water only and without disturbing the natural interface between the sweet and brackish water. "The only problem is that you cannot extract a lot of water through such tube wells," he noted.

Experts say the government must make water management a top priority, and also make the population aware that water is a finite resource.

Kahlown said his office, with the help of the United Nations Development Programme, was planning to launch a mass campaign to sensitise the public on the problem of water. "We are working on it. Hopefully, the campaign will start this year," he added.

[ENDS]

IRIN-Asia
Tel: +92-51-2211451
Fax: +92-51-2292918
Email: IrinAsia@irin.org.pk

[This Item is Delivered to the "Asia-English" Service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: IRIN@ocha.unon.org or Web: http://www.irinnews.org . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial sites requires written IRIN permission.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2002