Historic trends determine that water has remained the most stable feature of geography. Glaciers replenished downstream systems while the rivers followed familiar course. Groundwater provisioned a dependable reserve while the seasonal rainfall was perceived as a relieving element on which the settlements and agriculture depended upon. However, this reality has certainly transformed and the new water reality is intimidating for more than 8 billion people on planet earth.
The latest State of Global Water Resources 2025 report released by World Meteorological Or-ganization (WMO) presented a sobering picture. The global water cycle is not merely becoming warmer, rather it is becoming more volatile, less predictable and difficult to manage. The report further highlights that 2025 was among the driest years for global river discharge in 35 years, while the number of river basins experiencing normal conditions remained in the minority for the 7thconsecutive year. Below-normal discharge affected approximately 36% of the world’s river-basin area. The most consequential finding of this report was the deterioration of groundwater, glaciers, snow, soil moisture, lakes and other relatively slow-moving freshwater reserves. These resources traditionally provisioned a buffer against temporary droughts and irregular rainfall. Nevertheless, terrestrial water storage has been declining since roughly 2014–16, while nearly 2/3rdof monitored groundwater wells were outside their historical range in 2025, with conditions shifting further towards deficit. The glaciers tell an equally consequential story. Every major glaciated region recorded net ice loss for the fourth consecutive year. In 2025 alone, glaciers lost approximately 408 gigatonnes of mass, while cumulative losses between 2023 and 2025 reached around 1400 gigatonnes, which is roughly equivalent to 1/3rd of Annual Global Freshwater withdrawals.
The significance is not confined to the mountains. Glaciers are natural reservoirs. They regulate downstream flows and their retreat can initially increase runoff, but eventually reaches a point, which is described as peak water, after which declining ice mass means declining meltwater availability. The immediate problem, therefore, can be too much water at times, while the long-term problem can be too little water, when it is direly required. This contradiction defines the new water reality. The global community is confronting both abundance and scarcity at the same time, sometimes within the same region and even within the same year.
For Pakistan, this global transformation is particularly consequential because the country’s water system is inseparable from the Indus Basin. The challenge is not simply that Pakistan may have less water in the future. It is that the timing, location, quality and reliability of water availability are becoming more uncertain, while demand continues to rise. The WMO’s latest assessment is particularly relevant because it identifies below-normal terrestrial water storage across the broader Ganges–Indus headwaters during the 2021–25 period. WMO assessments have also identified the Indus headwaters as a long-term hotspot of declining terrestrial water storage.
This creates an uncomfortable paradox for Pakistan. The country can experience devastating floods and severe water stress within relatively short intervals and this tendency has been wit-nessed in the recent times. Pakistan’s vulnerability is amplified by the structure of its economy. Agriculture remains heavily dependent on irrigation, while urbanization and industrialization are simultaneously increasing the domestic and commercial demand. Groundwater has consequently become an essential component of the national water system. However, the World Bank has warned that Pakistan’s groundwater resources have developed with limited regulation and monitoring, while over-extraction, pollution, inefficient irrigation and inadequate management threaten the sustainability of the resource. The issue, therefore, cannot be reduced to whether Pakistan is a water-rich or water-scarce country. The more important question is whether Pakistan can capture, regulate, conserve and equitably distribute water, given that its hydrological patterns are continually becoming less predictable. The answer cannot simply be to build more infrastructures. Storage remains important, but storage without conservation can postpone rather than resolve scarcity. Similarly, expanding irrigation without improving agricultural water productivity can increase demand faster than supply. Groundwater can provide resilience during periods of surface-water stress, but unrestricted pumping effectively converts an emergency reserve into a disposable resource.
This is where the concept of water security needs to evolve. Water security can no longer mean merely having sufficient water during an average year. It must encompass reliability, resilience, quality, storage, efficiency, monitoring and institutional coordination. It needs to be realized that the implications of new water reality are particularly overwhelming. Pakistan’s water reality has considerably changed. It now depends upon the institutions and the people of this country, if they can change quickly enough to effectively manage it.
—The writer is a COO of Bondh-e-Shams, a non-profit organization working for providing clear water using solar-powered technology.
