: Opinion: Pakistan is sleepwalking into a climate crisis by increasing its dependence on groundwater #IndiaNEWS Pakistan’s water policy has traditionally focused on the surface water of the Indus

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Opinion: Pakistan is sleepwalking into a climate crisis by increasing its dependence on groundwater #IndiaNEWS
Pakistan’s water policy has traditionally focused on the surface water of the Indus basin, often at the cost of managing groundwater. This is perilous as both sources are inextricably linked and cannot be separated sustainably. Policymakers have pursued inconsistent water, agriculture, climate and urban planning policies, even if a battery of innovative pilot projects awaits upscaling. They need to offer investment policies and a coherent narrative to pursue “conjunctive management�, a catchphrase for the coordinated use of surface water and groundwater to maximise yield.Pakistan’s groundwater map is changing fast. In the last 50 years, Pakistan’s reliance on groundwater has at least tripled, making the country the world’s fourth-largest groundwater user, following three much larger countries – China, India and the United States. The country’s size, population and economic productivity cannot justify this heavy reliance on groundwater, particularly since it is unregulated, used freely and inefficiently, and has no mechanism to recharge the steeply falling water tables. Once the water bank of poor farmers and rural communities, groundwater is now depleted and polluted commercially by large landowners, industrial users, bottlers and urban water supply managers.Changing groundwater mapTwo factors are particularly important to understand the nature of the changing groundwater map.First, the Indus Waters Treaty is only about...Read more

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