Dr Ammad Farrukh
IMAGINE, you live in a city, where all the basic amenities for a sustainable living are available. Education, Health, economic opportunities and pleasant weather simultaneously ease your way of living.
Yet, all of a sudden, you have to call a tanker to fulfill your most basic need, i.e. Water. Islamabad is regarded as the 4th most beautiful capital in the world; yet, almost every other house in the city has to call a water tanker to merely fulfil the basic needs of the family. Likewise, Karachi and Lahore are the metropolitan cities of the country; nevertheless, availability of usable water has become a luxurious commodity for both of these cities. Likewise, people que up in long-lines on tube wells and water pumps in the rural as well as in the urban regions to fill up their containers, just for their daily basic use. This challenge has not merely become a mental fatigue for people, but has also severely affected the health of a large chunk of population.
Over the course of last two decades, the water shortage in the country has reached from 11% in 2004 to 31% in 2025. Presently, Pakistan is below the 1000m3 per person threshold, which classifies it as one of the most water scarce country in the SA region. Major metropolitan cities like Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Multan, Sialkot, Bahawalpur and Hyderabad are facing groundwater depletion of roughly 0.5-1 meter every year. These depleting water levels have turned on the alarm for the Government of Pakistan and its population of more than 250 million people. It must be ascertained that groundwater provisions around 90% of drinking water supplies in almost all the major cities of the country.
With the water levels presently reported, it can be forecast that the gap between demand and supply will tremendously increase in the future in order to meet the demand of rapidly growing population. A multi-pronged strategy is required at national level, which encompasses the construction of small and large dams, focus on Nature based solutions (NBS), harvesting rainwater in the modernized and newly constructed infrastructures, leveraging sensors through IoT and data analytics, with the objective to optimize supply, demand and leakage detection in city networks, efficient farming practices, groundwater recharge wells, data-driven water allocation for different regions, drought action planning, community-led monitoring and reusing the waste water. All of these initiatives require extensive planning, resources, coordination and a unified approach amongst all the provinces to address this challenge.
In the present context, a sustainable survival for the future generations of Pakistan is entirely dependent on how the Government of Pakistan amicably makes effort to resolve this issue. Islamabad has become a concrete jungle during last two decades. Multiple housing societies, development by the CDA, extension of the city and migration of people from across the country in quest for a better living has completely transformed the population dynamics of this city. While there is no limit to development and prosperity, if it is at the cost of ruining the natural resources of the capital, the future will be consequential. Environmental security and climate-oriented measures must be a non-negotiable policy for the respective institutions. Newly developed housing societies and infrastructure owners must be obligated to develop water tanks that can harvest the rain water. Merely the Government of Pakistan cannot be held responsible for addressing this issue. Rather, the owners of private societies and skyscraper buildings should also be obligated to contribute to such cause.
Pakistan is at a very crucial juncture in terms of water security. Either the Government of Pakistan and its institutions will save the future of the country through a vision-oriented and focused national approach for water preservation or this population bulk of 250 million people will face severe consequences in the near future. Sustainable urban future of Pakistan is completely dependent on how the newly developed infrastructures are built and what sustainable strategies are employed by them. Although CDA has made it mandatory in its by-laws to establish rainwater harvesting facility for all new houses in Islamabad; nevertheless, the real change will be ascertained, when its full-fledged implementation will be ensured. Dedicated community level awareness and media campaigns will further the implementation of this vision; nevertheless, it is not merely Islamabad, rather the entire Pakistan, that is in need of desperate measures to effectively address this challenge. Realization of this challenge at community level will only lead to effective and far-reaching measures, else the future holds devastating consequences for the people of Pakistan.
—The writer is contributing columnist.
