Climate change has begun to take its toll and its effects are visible in parts of the country. Rivers are drying up, partly due to less monsoon rains and partly due to dams constructed by India on the rivers flowing through Pakistan. The level of underground water is dwindling and the cost to pump it out to irrigate agriculture lands is rising, threatening food security in the country. Pakistan is still an agriculture economy with rice, sugarcane, barley, lentils and wheat as major crops but groundwater level has gone down around 15 to 20 feet during the last five to six years.
According to a study carried out by the International Waterlogging and Salinity Research Institute, groundwater supplies are depleting at 16 to 55 centimeters a year in part of the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. The situation can be critical in coming years as nearly half of the land in Punjab is irrigated through tube wells and the excessive pumping of groundwater is quickly lowering the water table. Electricity is expensive and also in short supply while use of diesel generators at large scale is also not economically viable. The study says that the area lacks a water recharge system and Pakistan cannot use water from the Sutlej and Beas rivers under the Indus Water Treaty with India. The treaty, which was signed in 1960, had divided the Indus River system equally between Pakistan and India, giving each country exclusive use of three of the river’s tributaries. Lack of water can stem the cultivation of water-intensive crops like sugarcane and rice in the next 10 years. According to the agricultural census carried out by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics in 2010, about 64 percent of the country’s population lives in rural areas and a majority of which is farmers. Experts believe that food insecurity already poses a threat to half of the country’s population and if the current rate of water depletion continues, it will severely affect cultivation in Punjab and parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They fear that accessibility of food will become extremely difficult for over 60 percent of the population in coming years.
Keeping in view the pathetic situation, the government will have to come up with a contingency plan to meet the food demands of the growing population. According to a study, about 145 million acre-feet of water flows through Pakistan each year, but it has the capacity to store water only for 30 days. The international standard is 120 days. The government will have to construct new reservoirs and modern methods of cultivation to ensure minimum use of irrigation water.
