May 12, 2008	Monday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 6, 1429

Pakistan water sector is going through a crisis. Like energy, water demand is growing far more than available supply. Past efforts have focused more on enhancing supply through engineering solutions such as Indus basin development and other large scale investments.

To follow the same policy options in developing viable large projects seems to be the casualty of political impasse, high cost of developing additional cubic meter of water and may be due to much debated negative externality of not allocating enough water for preserving downstream environment.

Water demand management is still low on the agenda, as trade off’s have not been studied well enough in spite of large planned investment. The medium to long- term policy options to enhance supply are being worked out with a bias towards small dams. Is it a good option? I would like to share international experience by highlighting briefly two examples from countries where water scarcity is worst than Pakistan.

Yemen is one country where large scale investment in small dams has taken place. In a recent document, “Managing Water for Development Towards a Joint Vision for Water Resources and Agriculture”, Dr Gerhard Lichtenthäler, reports that farmers in a rural community pinned great hope in small dams, but when project was completed after two years, their access to water was not enhanced to the extent hoped for and only notable beneficiaries were few well owners from other villages indicating that a drop in groundwater levels has slowed.

Farmers in the dam vicinity still depend on their wells for reliable supply of water. The most notable aspect is its economics. Following the 2006 summer rainy season, the dam (measuring 120 x 60 x 3 meters deep) contained approximately 20,000 cubic meters. In comparison to this volume of water a single pump in the same basin can pump approximately three times as much groundwater per year, or approximately 60,000 cubic meters (based on facts that well yield of six litres per second, pumping 12 hours a day and a total of 240 days per year during growing seasons). With estimated irrigation efficiency of 30 per cent or more, according to report, the same amount of water that was stored in the dam could be saved annually by a single pump, which usually irrigates up to five hectares of land. A total of 1,500 wells in plain and 2,600 wells in the basin’s catchment exist in the region where small dam was constructed. It reveals that the cost of modern irrigation pump is estimated at approximately $7,000-10,000, the dam cost YR 89.5 million, or nearly half a million dollars, thus saving 50 times the amount of water the dam had stored.

There are lessons for Pakistan as it has huge inventory of wells but lacks the modern technology at farm levels to enhance water productivity and save water. However, some spadework needs to be done, based on identifying water management zones where modern technology (water harvesting, canal lining, and pressurised irrigation ) results in real water saving instead of so-called “paper water saving”), meaning, my gain can be someone else loss.

Oman, with condition similar to Balochistan also carry good experience on developing small dams. A very recent study by FAO also provided interesting policy options. The ministry of environments and water resources (MEWR) estimated the cost trade-offs of developing water or saving (paisa/cm) with policy options of supply enhancement (re-charge dams and storage dams) versus demand management (water pricing and more crop per drop and more jobs per drop ).

The study indicated that the cost for the first option ranged from 275 to 300 paisa’s per cm (1000 paisa equal one OR and .384 OR equal one dollar) and for later range from less than 10 paisa for improving surface irrigation, to over 100 phases for progressive domestic tariff. Clearly, demand management options are more cost effective. With rising cost of developing new supplies here and elsewhere, the demand management option needs to be explored based on sound policy studies, which in my view, are lacking in our decision-making process.

Two aspects in the future water policy cannot be ignored in managing water resource development. First, in the medium to long-term agriculture has to produce more with less water (more crops per drop) and second the available water will also compete for preserving environment.

Under this changing policy scenario, one must be sure that planned investment in small dams yields attractive returns as it may crowd out funds for other feasible options. Small dams option be based on rigorous analysis that investment is technically feasible, economically viable, socially acceptable and environmentally sound.

Pakistan has huge groundwater reserves (can be termed as dams provided by nature) which need to be managed with prudent demand management policies like sustainable resources use, adopting modern water saving technologies, reallocating water to high value crops and complimenting it with promoting conservation agriculture. If groundwater is properly managed, it can be also be one of the best hedge against drought management, and also of great importance to the agricultural economy.