ISLAMABAD, Sept 18: About 11 million hectares are being affected annually due to some 40 million tons of soil that gets accumulated in the Indus basin, Minister of State for Environment Maj Tahir Iqbal (retired) said on Thursday.

He was speaking as chief guest at the inaugural session of the national workshop on ‘Combating Desertification and Promoting Synergistic Implementation of Inter-Linked Multilateral Environmental Conventions in Pakistan’.

Pakistan is among 100 countries being affected by desertification that is causing environment degradation, loss of soil fertility, biodiversity and reduction in land productivity, the minister said.

About 80 per cent of the country is arid and semi arid, nearly 12 per cent is sub humid and the remaining eight per cent is humid, he added.

The minister also informed the participants that though mountains of the Northern Areas were a major source of water for Tarbela and Mangla dams, these reservoirs had been silted up due to heavy soil erosion. As a result the capacity of power generation and availability of irrigation water was reducing, he added.

Similarly, arid lands are subjected to heavy soil erosion, primarily due to improper land use by crop cultivation, livestock grazing and illegal removal of vegetation cover.

Deserts have acute problem of shifting sand dunes and salinity. And, the irrigated areas of the country are infected by the twin-menace of water logging and salinity.

Underground water resources in the western dry mountains of Balochistan are shrinking due to over exploitation of the meagre quantity of water for horticulture and crop cultivation.

Likewise, Pakistan has a limited forest cover of 5.2 per cent, an area already too low to meet environmental as well as socio-economic requirements of the country. Furthermore, the indiscriminate cutting of trees for fuel and livestock, over- grazing and man-made ecological changes are putting more pressure on the forest cover shrinking it by 3.1 per cent annually, he said.

Referring to a study, the minister said, wind erosion was also a grave problem in the deserts of Thal, Cholistan, Tharparkar and along Makran coast.

About 68 million hectares of the country lie in regions receiving less than 300mm of rain annually, which makes them susceptible to periodic droughts.

The recent drought in Balochistan, Sindh and southern Punjab is estimated to have affected 2.2 million people and 7.2 million heads of cattle. He also revealed that the capacity and capability of meteorological services to produce information for early warning services in the country were weak and under- developed.

On the other hand, underground water resources in Pakistan are overexploited. Traditional karez irrigation systems in Balochistan are also becoming inoperable, adversely affecting the livelihood of people dependent on groundwater.

He also urged the participating experts to evolve certain strategies to fight against these impending dangers which would become acute in the next five to 10 years, “if we as a nation do not take adequate measures in this regard”.