Increasing Pakistan’s Water Resilience

Stockholm Resilience Centre defines resilience as the capacity of a system to deal with change and continue to develop. System can be an individual, a forest, a city or an economy. In simple words, resilience refers to the ability of an ecosystem to deal with disturbances and returns to its former state. When it comes to water resource management in Pakistan, unfortunately, we are not managing our water resource as sustainably as we should. WWF Pakistan points out a robust difference in water consumption between communities in Pakistan. Those who can afford uses 10 times more water than global average that stands at 10 gallons a day. On the contrary, poor lacks access to water in Pakistan. How sad it is that there exist two different water realities in Pakistan. On one hand, we have people that uses 100 gallons of water each day. On the other hand, we have masses that don’t even have access to water. We must put an end to existing water inequality in Pakistan.

Water forms the backbone of our society and economy and without sustainable water management practices in place, we can neither have socially equitable society nor can we achieve sustainable economic growth for Pakistan. We must ensure that each person in Pakistan should have access to clean water regardless of geographical location and financial resources at disposal. If we really want to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for Pakistan, we must end water inequality in Pakistan. An access to clean water is a basic human right and thus it should be available to all in the country. It is important to mention here that each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is strongly coupled with how we manage water as a natural resource. If we mange water wisely (with tomorrow in mind), we can easily achieve all 17 SDGs for Pakistan. However, an unsustainable water resource management will act as Achilles heel and prevent us in realizing Sustainable Development Goals. We certainly need a paradigm shift in managing water as a resource in Pakistan.

Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives (Government of Pakistan) highlights that at the time of independence, per capita water availability in Pakistan was over 5000 cubic meters each year. Unfortunately, today, per capita water availability in Pakistan is sharply reduced to roughly 1000 cubic meters per person each year. In other words, each person in Pakistan now only has 1/5 of the water available every year, when compared to 1947 (at the time of independence). Public policy makers in Pakistan must tackle decreasing per capita water availability in Pakistan with utmost seriousness and do all it takes to tackle it in the most sustainable manner. Before we head on to solutions, we must understand the root causes of decreasing per capita water availability in Pakistan. According to Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), population in Pakistan has increased 7-fold since independence in 1947. Naturally, when we distribute the same amount of water we have each year on 7 times more population, the per capita water availability in Pakistan would then sharply reduce. ACIAR then stresses on the fact that irrigated agriculture in Pakistan consumes 95% of surface water supply in the country. Another report from Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) highlights that irrigated agriculture consumes 93% of the available water resource and acts as the single largest sector of economy employing 44% of the labour force, generating 60% of the foreign exchange earnings and produces roughly a quarter of Pakistan’s gross domestic product (GDP). The already spoken report from PCRWR then points out that Pakistan waste 60% of water from canals to farm gates. Do you know that per capita water storage ability of Pakistan is roughly 159 m3? On the contrary, the per-capita water storage ability of USA and Australia is over 5000m3, followed by China with a per-capita water storage ability of 2200m3, Egypt 2362 m3, Turkey 1402 m3 and Iran with 492m3.

PCRWR further indicates that inadequate water storage ability has forced Pakistan to lose 120 BCM of water during floods of 2010, 2012 and 2014. If Pakistan had ample surface water storage infrastructure in place, it could had saved at least half of 120 BCM of surface water that could then be used to increase per-capita water availability in the country. The remaining 60 BCM of floodwater could restore Indus River Delta where many species are fighting for their survival due to reduced river flow. There is a dire need for Pakistan to build small, medium and large dams to store surface water. Doing so, will increase surface water availability on year-round basis, decrease flood related damage to agricultural lands and infrastructure, increase per-capita water availability, reduce reliance on underground water, recharge aquifers and mitigate their depletion. We have what it takes to build a series of small, medium and large dams in Pakistan to harvest floodwater during monsoon season.

Do you know that 1 billion cubic meters of water has 1 trillion litres of water? Now imagine, if 50 litres of water cost 1 USD, the price tag of 1 billion cubic meters (or 1 trillion litres) of water would be 20 billion USD. Thus, a cumulative cost for 60 BCM of floodwater would roughly be USD 1200 billion. Now, if we would sharply reduce the already spoken figure to its one-tenth, the cost would still be a whooping USD 120 billion for 60 BCM of floodwater. We must understand that this is just the price of water. It is crucial to mention here that water forms the basis of all sorts of social and economic development, and we must learn to manage water sustainably to ensure a resilient Pakistan for all. We must invest heavily in constructing dams of all sizes to increase surface water availability and to enhance per-capita water in Pakistan. Here is an example. Do you know that Sweden has roughly 10,000 dams to manage surface water. It is quite simple, the more dams we have, more surface water we can store and as a result, can reduce the sheer intensity of monsoon floods. Simultaneously, we must also ensure to keep Indus River Delta in a healthy state, so that species would not have to fight for their survival due to reduced river flow.

Apart from dams’ construction, we must also invest heavily in recycling wastewater and to reuse the recycled wastewater in different industrial processes. Do you know that Singapore turns its sewage into safe and clean drinking water through advanced filtration and treatment methods. Singapore’s Changi Water Reclamation Plant can treat roughly 900 million litres of wastewater each day. So can be the case for all big cities and industries in Pakistan. We can collaborate with Singapore and can learn from it as to how to turn wastewater into clean and safe drinking water. Doing so, will help Pakistan to learn from Singapore’s experience, foster economic growth, make our societies more resilient and would prove to be a crucial step in mitigating water shortage in Pakistan. We can create artificial lakes outside each big city in Pakistan where we can store the recycled water to reuse it in future. To prevent water loss due to evaporation, we can install floating solar PV farms in these artificial lakes and thus can even produce clean electricity while avoiding water loss. Do you know that Portugal has installed a floating solar PV farm that is equivalent to 5 football fields in size on a reservoir in southern part of the country? If Portugal can, so can Pakistan as well.

Another important step to increase water resilience is to keep a keen eye on repairs in water infrastructure in our homes in Pakistan. Now imagine, if we have a leaking tap that drips a drop of water, every other second and altogether leaks a litre of water each day into drain. Without repair we will lose 365 litres of water in a years’ time. Now assume, if we have 20 million such taps in Pakistan that remained unrepaired and loses a drop of water every other second. In a years’ time, 20 million leaking taps will lose roughly 7.3 billion litres of water to drainage. Can we afford this wastage of water? I doubt. On surface, it seems quite harmless losing a drop of water every other second from tap but being able to see the larger picture helps us in understanding the real consequences. Quite often, minor repairs can make a major difference.

When it comes to managing water, we must learn to do more with less. As already discussed, irrigated agriculture consumes 93% of the available water resource and produces roughly a quarter of Pakistan’s gross domestic product (GDP). It is certainly here that we need a paradigm shift in managing water as a resource in Pakistan. We must learn to see the value of each drop of water and the enhanced productivity that we can achieve against each drop in agriculture sector. Here is an example. How about if we would generate the same output in agriculture (that we normally do) but with 50% less water? Doing so, will help us spare 43% of surface water that can then be used for domestic and industrial purposes. How about if we would use only drip irrigation technique in agriculture sector in Pakistan. Using drip irrigation method will help us to produce more crop per drop and certainly will prepare our agriculture sector for a future with below average rainfall due to the impacts of climate change. Pakistan Economic Survey 2025-26 points out 2025 was the second warmest year in 65 years where average temperature was 23.9 °C and we had 3% below average rainfall. It also sheds light on the fact that Pakistan has experienced an increase of 0.5 °C in annual mean temperature during last 50 years and is further expected to experience an increase of 3 °C to 5 °C in annual mean temperature by the end of 21st century. We must do all it takes to mitigate climate change and to increase Pakistan’s water resilience.

To conclude, the responsibility to increase per-capita water availability in Pakistan lies on all. We must all act together to conserve water in Pakistan for us and our coming generations. With right public policy actions, implemented in the right direction, we can certainly increase Pakistan’s water resilience. Without water, there is neither social stability nor economic growth of any kind. We must strive to increase per-capita water availability to roughly 3000 cubic meters per person each year by 2050. This means 3 times more water per person with an ever increasing population in Pakistan. We must build dams to store more of the surface water, recycle every single drop of wastewater and fix leakages in the water infrastructure in our homes and in agriculture sector. Simultaneously, we must prepare our agriculture sector for a transition to drip irrigation technique. Without adopting drip irrigation method across the length and breadth of Pakistan, unfortunately, we cannot make any significant improvement in per-capita water availability in the country. Be it our agriculture, industry or houses, we must learn to see the worth of each drop of water and must increase productivity achieved against each drop of water. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has named Pakistan as the fifth most populous country in the world with a population of over 255 million. It further predicts that our population will be 403 million by 2050. We must control the unsustainable growth in our population at some point as we cannot expect us to grow infinitely. International Organization for Migration (IOM) has named Pakistan as 15th most water-stressed country in the world and predicted it to be water scarce by 2035. We cannot afford to maintain the status-quo when it comes to managing water in Pakistan. We must treat water as it is more precious than diamonds and gold (which it is in-fact). Time is slipping through our hands, and we need to act now. Choice is ours and will always be.

The writer is a Stockholm-based policy analyst and the Founder / Operations Manager of Project Green Earth (www.projectge.org). He can be reached at aubhameedi@yahoo.com