Dr Muhammad Ashraf

Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR)

Water Management Challenges in Pakistan

June 12, 2017

Surface and Groundwater Resources of Pakistan

• One of the largest contiguous irrigation systems of the world

• One of the largest groundwater resources of the world (4th after India, USA and China)

• Supplement over 60% of the surface water supplies

• Over 90% drinking water and 100% industrial water comes from groundwater

Water Management Challenges

• Water scarcity

• Groundwater depletion/degradation

– Drinking water

– Irrigation water

– Drainage effluent

– Wastewater

• Inefficient irrigation system

What is water scarcity?

• When an individual does not have access

to safe and affordable water to satisfy her

or his needs for drinking, washing or their

livelihoods we call that person water

insecure

• When a large number of people in an area

are water insecure for a significant period

of time, that area is water scarce

• Water quality (both for drinking and

agricultural purposes) also leads to water

scarcity

Water Scarcity in Pakistan

• Is there a real water scarcity?

• If yes to what extent?

• What are the major reasons for water

scarcity?

• What are the tangible solutions to

overcome water scarcity?

• Falkenmark Indicator (Falkenmark et al.,

1989)

• The Water Resources Vulnerability Index

(WRVI) (Raskin et al., 1997)

• IWMI’s Physical and Economic Water

Scarcity Indicators (Seckler et al., 1998)

• Water Poverty Index (Sullivan et al., 2003)

Water Scarcity Indicators

Falkenmark Indicator

• Relationship between the available water and

the human population

• Threshold limit: water availability of over 1700

m3/person/year - water abundance

• Country with water availability of less than 1700

m3/person/year - water stress

• When per capita water availability falls below

1000 m3, the country becomes water scarce

• Below 500 m3/person/year - absolute water

scarcity

Water Availability in Pakistan

The Water Resources Vulnerability Index (WRVI)

• It compares national annual water availability

with the total annual withdrawals (in percent)

• If annual withdrawals are between 20-40% of

the annual water supply, the country is said to

be water scarce

• If it exceeds 40%, the country is said to be

severely water scarce

Total Water Availability and Uses in Pakistan

• Surface water available in the system: 142 MAF

• Groundwater available: 54 MAF

• Total water available: 196 MAF

• Surface water diversion (uses): 104 MAF

• Groundwater abstraction: 46 MAF

• Total water used: 150 MAF

WRVI = 150/196 = 77%

IWMI’s Physical and Economic Water

Scarcity Indicators

• The countries that will not be able to meet the

estimated water demands in 2025, even after

accounting for the future adaptive capacity are

called “physically water scarce”

• The countries that have sufficient renewable

resources but would have to make very

significant investment in water infrastructure to

make these resources available to the people

are called “economically water scarce”

Year 2004 2025

Availability 104 104

Requirement (including drinking water)

115

(3.5)

135

(4.0)

Overall Shortfall (%) 11 31

Surface Water Availability Vs. Requirement (MAF)

Source: Ten Year Perspective Development Plan 2001-11, Planning Commission of Pakistan

Water Poverty Index

It has five components:

1. Access to water

2. Water quantity, quality and variability

3. Water uses for domestic, food and productive

purposes

4. Capacity for water management

5. Environmental aspects

Major Causes of Water Scarcity

• Increased in population, urbanization, industrial and

agricultural activities

• Water shortage (water shortfall that was 11% in 2004 will

increase to 31% by 2025)

• Recurring floods (2010, 2011, 2014) ≈ 90 MAF

• Inadequate water harvesting and storage facilities (only 10%

of the average annual flow)

• Reduction in storages capacities of the existing reservoirs

due to sedimentation (0.2 MAF)

• Unutilized potentials – hill torrents, Sailaba – 18 MAF

Groundwater Depletion/Degradation

Drinking Water Quality Monitoring in Pakistan

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2015

Per

cen

tage

of

sam

ple

s (%

)

Safe Unsafe

Sr.

No.

Province Districts Tehsils Union

Councils

Villages Samples

Collected

No. of Water Samples

Safe Unsafe

No. %age No. %age

1 Punjab 12 49 1227 2090 10440 2183 21 8257 79

2 Sindh 3 12 54 149 745 212 28 533 72

3 KP 4 6 211 240 1200 89 7 1111 93

4 Balochistan 4 12 54 298 1465 05 0.3 1460 99

5 Federal

Capital Area

1 1 21 30 150 61 41 89 59

Total 24 80 1567 2807 14000 2550 18 11450 82

Drinking Water Quality Profile of Rural Areas

(2004-2011)

Technical Assessment of Water Supply

Schemes (2006-2012)

Province Districts

surveyed

Water

supply

schemes

Surveyed water supply

schemes

Functional Samples safe for

drinking (%age)

Total Urban Rural Urban Rural

Punjab 33 4100 3883 746 3137 2725 17 23

Sindh 22 1300 1247 123 1124 529 5 5

KP 16 3000 2203 474 1729 1710 63 26

Balochistan 14 1600 1034 480 554 968 20 13

GB/AJK/FATA 10 2000 1794 18 1776 1379 8 2

Total 95 12000 10161 1841 8320 7311 23 14

• Wide spread Bacterial Contamination (All over the country)

• Arsenic Contamination (Punjab & Sindh)

• Fluoride & Nitrate Contamination (Balochistan, KP & Punjab)

Major Contaminants

o Pollution of surface water – sewerage, industrial (about 3.6 MAF wastewater from major cities of Pakistan)

o Pollution of groundwater – agriculture, industrial (5.6 million tons of fertilizer and 70,000 tons of pesticides are consumed in the country every

year)

o Pumping of sodic water

o Salt-water up-coning & sea water intrusion

o Disposal of drainage effluents – 10 MAF

o Soil Salinity (out of 33 million tons of salts, only 8 million tons are

discharged into sea)

Major Water Quality Issues

• Water quality of the rivers typically

decline downstream and in low flow

seasons

• In the low flow period, the COD & BOD

level increases above the water quality

standards for effluent and DO level

drops down near to zero in Ravi river

• The level of other water quality

parameters such as TDS, heavy metals

and organic pollutants also increases

• Not a single drain in the monitoring

program was compiling with the

Pakistan National Environmental Quality

Standards

• All shallow groundwater sources were

found contaminated with physico-

chemical, microbiological and heavy

metals contaminants

• Persistent organic pollutants (POPs)

were found upstream near Indian border

during high flow seasons

Water Quality of the Eastern Rivers

• Asia's largest freshwater lake

• Covering area 350 to 520 km².

• Receives water from several small

streams in the Kirthar Mountains and

drains into the Indus River.

• Uses: Agriculture, migratory birds,

and source of livelihoods for fishing

communities.

• Salinity is increasing because of

effluent from RBOD-3 and

wastewater from the surrounding

settlements

Water Quality of Manchar Lake

• Low system efficiency (less than 40%)

• Low Productivity per unit of water

• Inequity in water distribution

• Conventional layout of the farms

• Unlevelled fields

• Conventional irrigation methods – flooding

• Improper irrigation scheduling

• Low water charges for canal water

Inefficient Irrigation System

Water Losses in the Irrigation System

LocationDelivery at

Head (MAF)

Losses

(MAF)

Losses

(%)

Canals 106 16 15

Distributary & minor 90 6 7

Watercourses 84 26 31

Fields 58 17 29

Crop Use 41

Total 65 61

Possible Options to Overcome Water Scarcity

• Construct small and large dams where possible

• Improve the surface water governance with proper

pricing

• Legislate and restrict indiscriminate groundwater

abstraction

• Control increase in population

Hard Path:

Increase Storage and Improve Water Governance

• Improving conveyance and application efficiencies

– Canal and watercourse improvement/maintenance

– Improving farm layout

– Leveling of fields

• Using high efficiency irrigation systems:

– Bed and furrow methods of irrigation

– Sprinkler/drip irrigation system

• Changing the existing cropping patterns i.e. by adopting

low delta crops

• Adopting proper irrigation scheduling

– When to apply and how much to apply water?

• Using saline groundwater, in conjunction with canal

water, or independently with salt tolerant crops.

• Use of improved agronomic practices

Soft Path: Improve Water Productivity

An integrated approach is required to

optimally use the available water resources

Potential of Adopting Bed Plating Technology

Description Wheat Cotton Maize Rice

Area under crop (Mha) 8.41 3.05 1.02 2.52

Average production (000 bales/000 tons) 21749 11655 3313 5563

Average yield increase (%) 17 12 27 25

Increase in national production (000 bales/000 tons) 3654 1364 885 1396

Average water saving (%) 46 43 42 30

Potential of increasing area under crop (Mha) 3.83 1.31 0.43 0.76

If we are able to save only 10% of the existing losses

of water, it will be of the order of about 6 MAF

Wheat on raise beds

Rice on furrows

31Wheat Crop Irrigated With Raingun

muhammad_ashraf63@yahoo.com

Water Challenges-Shared River Systems

• Trans-boundary rivers create hydrological, social and economic interdependencies among the societies

• Allocation of shared water resources and their benefits between upstream and downstream

• Politics of trans-boundary water negotiations between states/countries are complex; influenced by power relationships

• Lack of water equity in shared water resources at National and Regional Scale

• Trust deficits among federating units due to unreliable data sets and lack of information sharing

• Insufficient facts and lack of scientific evidence

• Changing climate and increasing populating - posing pressure on shared waters- preventing the nations from entering into agreement