I HAD a chance to attend the annual school functions of my grandchildren recently. I was glad to see students taking a keen interest in vital matters like water conservation and its judicious use. I couldn’t stop myself from cheering the children and exclaiming: “Keep up the good work, you are architects of tomorrow.”

I felt like telling them that conserving rainwater in every way possible should be at the top of our priority list. The next is the building of more dams and that dams cannot be built in the plains but in mountain valleys that are hundreds of feet deep. Mangla and Tarbela dams are over 400 feet in depth and many miles in width and length.

It is only reservoirs of this mega size that can store millions of acre-feet of water to meet irrigation and other demands of our country. These reservoirs also help store floodwaters which otherwise would cause immense damage. Dams also store water in wet summer months (Kharif) for use in dry winter months (Rabi).

The country’s largest city, Karachi, needs more than 1,000 million gallons of water a day whereas the Kotri barrage is providing only half of this amount. The reason for the shortage is that our existing dams have lost considerable storage capacity while the demand has increased manifold in the metropolis and the rest of the country.

Pakistan’s population has increased from 80 million to 20 million in the 40 years since the Tarbela dam was commissioned. We need to build additional storage quickly if we don’t want to end up as a water starved country.

Engr Khurshid Anwer

Lahore

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2018