water management challenges in pakistan dr muhammad ......•low water charges for canal water...
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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
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