Water Crisis in Pakistan, its Impact on the Economy and Potential Solutions.

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Water Crisis

Pakistan is one of the 30 countries of the world, facing an acute water deficiency, which is likely to aggravate during the forthcoming decades. More then 80% of Pakistan lies in the arid and semi-arid zones, characterized by highly erratic, unpredictable and low precipitation, excessive evapo-transpiration and high summer temperatures. Coupled with uneven river flow, the climatic vagrancy has placed Pakistan in a critical water supply environment. Presently Pakistan is going worst draught and water crisis of its history which is likely to persist for few years. To understand the magnitude of the water shortage and its impact on economy, some of the causes are listed below.

        In the years when rainfall is normal or above, the country generally does not face any water shortage, where as in below average rainfall period it does. This has happened just few weeks earlier.

        As said earlier that now-a-days Pakistan is facing severe shortage of water. There are two main reasons, one natural due to prolong drought which is beyond the control of a man, and the other due to the gross negligence in the development and the mis-management of water resources.

Causes of Water Crisis

Low Rainfall/Snow Fall Pakistan has entered into third lean period of precipitation. There had been no incidence of floods since last three last years and dry spell is gradually at increase.

Reduction in storage Capacity Live storage in the available reservoirs is depleting due to silting up. The existing storage reservoirs available at Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma are loosing storage capacities at a rapid rate. The storage capacities of these reservoirs shall continue restricting in the future years causing corresponding reduction in the available water resulting in serious shortage of canal water during the lean flow periods of October-June each year.

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Changing Crops Pattern Rice and Sugar-cane crops consume large quantity of water as compared to Cotton and other crops of KHARIF. Good price and mushroom of sugar mills without any master planning encouraged farmers to grow these crops even in the Arid Zone thus increasing the demand of water manifolds.

Water Allowance Higher water allowance in certain districts is even creating drainage/salinity problems. In Sindh, allocation of water per 1000 acres of canal command area, termed water allowance is far greater than in Punjab.

Urbanization/Industrialization Growing urban-industrial use of water is also a contributory factor. The Khanpur Dam constructed for urban water ...

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