KARACHI: Pakistan’s persistent failure to ensure efficiency in water use, especially in the agriculture sector which consumes over 90 per cent of freshwater resources, and build facilities for storing water explains why the country is ranked third among the water-stressed countries in the world. It’s an alarming situation, requiring immediate government attention.

These views were expressed by speakers during a seminar held in connection with the World Water Day organised at the Federal Urdu University for Arts, Science and Technology (Fuuast) on Thursday.

The event was organised by the geology department.

Sharing their concerns over the water crisis, speakers said that Pakistan not only faced scarcity of water, it also confronted the problem of water contamination causing death and diseases on a large scale.

This indicated that the country had no reliable and safe mechanism to dispose of its waste, including the hazardous waste from industries, which was dumped in freshwater bodies and the sea.

They suggested that Pakistan, like many other countries, needed to divide its water use into two categories; one reserved for drinking and cooking purposes and the rest constituting lower-quality water for other uses.

“Water scarcity is a serious issue that can seriously affect our agricultural economy. Moreover, what’s disturbing is to have contaminated drinking water supplies,” Prof Waqar Hussain, an expert on geology, said, adding that water-related problems were getting complicated day by day as there seemed to be no strategy in place to address them.

Citing a Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources report, chairperson of the geology department Prof Seema Naz Siddiqui warned that if the situation remained as it was, Pakistan might run dry by 2025.

“We have come to this point owing to persistent government failure to develop a mechanism on efficient water use, unfair distribution of water within the country and changing climate,” she said, while also blaming some regional countries for water crisis in Pakistan. Prof Shahana Urooj Kazmi, Dr Adnan Khan, Dr Ume Hani and Dr Aamir Alamgir also spoke.

At another event on the same subject held at Karachi University, experts spoke about the important role water played in human life and nature and underscored the need for water conservation.

Prof Abid Hasnain, a senior teacher of KU’s food science and technology department, said: “Every drop of water is a source of life and must be valued and conserved. We must educate our society, especially the youth, about the impending water crisis and what they need to do.”

Giving example of Germany, he said each house had two metres, one meant for keeping record of water use and the other for water being wasted and citizens who wasted water were fined. “We need to introduce such a system to stop wastage of water,” he said.

According to Dr Nuzhat Khan, principal research officer at the National Institute of Oceanography, water scarcity could lead to a world war and conflicts within a country, if mechanisms were not developed to tackle this issue within a state and interstate.

Acting chairperson of KU’s department of geology Prof Erum Bashir and Qazi Sadaruddin representing Al-Khidmat Karachi also spoke.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2018