THE city of Cape Town in South Africa was named the world’s first drought-stricken city after it ran out of groundwater, and the government conceded its inability to provide fresh water to the inhabitants. The repeated alarms sounded by experts about more cities meeting the same fate have been generally not paid heed to. Today, several countries, including Pakistan, find themselves in the danger zone.

As a nation, our efforts to build dams have largely been influenced by our desire to generate electricity rather than by the utter need to addressing water storage incapacity issues. Reports reveal that the water storage capacity of our large dams is decreasing rapidly. With the groundwater table gradually going down, we are simply waiting to be hit by a catastrophe.

The government must initiate aware-ness campaigns to encourage people to use water cautiously, and to stop its wastage. Let us fight this looming crisis together.

The authorities should take on board all the stakeholders, including students, professionals and households, to save water and our future before it is too late.

Nawaz Malik
Gilgit-Baltistan

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2025