ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Climate Change Mushahidullah Khan has urged the media, public and private institutions to create public awareness about rapidly depleting natural resource especially about water usage at all forums.
The minister, in a statement, warned that persisting habits regarding use of water, particularly in the context of negative impacts of climate change on water resources, would put efforts for achieving sustainable development goals at stake.
Senator Mushahidullah said that Pakistan was among the few countries where public perception of water was not encouraging and it was termed the most wasteful water user nation in the world. “Experts have already flagged water as one of the foremost security challenges that confront Pakistan today, on a par with the threat of terrorism,” he said.
He said additional water available to the country because of floods and the melting of glaciers was an asset that could be saved by constructing additional water storage infrastructure. Increasing population, inadequate storage capacity and extremely high water losses were the root causes of decreasing per capita water availability, the minister said.
It is pertinent to mention that according to the United Nations’ “UN World Water Development Report”, the total actual renewable water resources decreased from 2,961 m³ per capita in 2000 to 1,420 m³ per capita in 2005.
