Pakistan’s Water Economy : Running Dry

By J. Briscoe, Usman Qamar. 2008

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Pakistan is one of the world's most arid countries, with an average rainfall of under 240 mm a year. The population and the economy are heavily dependent on an annual influx into the Indus river system (including the Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej rivers) of about 180 billion cubic meters of water, that emanates from the neighboring countries and is mostly derived from snow-melt in the Himalayas. Throughout history, people have adapted to the low and poorly distributed rainfall by either living along river banks or by careful husbanding and management of local water resources. One of the greatest of human civilizations-the Indus Valley Civilization (Harappa and Mohenjodaro) flourished along the banks of the Indus. This precarious, low-level balance between man and water was decisively shifted with the advent of large-scale irrigation technology in the nineteenth century. The Indus irrigation system became the largest contiguous irrigation system in the world. The water economy of Pakistan depends fundamentally on a gigantic and complex hydraulic infrastructure system. Pakistan has overcome major water challenges in the past. Pakistan has a remarkable history of successfully confronting major water challenges. There are now a set of related challenges which have to be addressed how to maintain what has been built, what major new system-wide infrastructure needs to be built, what infrastructure needs to be built for populations who have not been served and for environmental protection, and how to build institutions that will manage the resource effectively in the looming era of scarcity. Pakistan needs to develop its indigenous capacity and make a major push to establish and nurture a new set of institutions that will provide the scientific, technical, and policy support for the management of increasingly scarce water. Experience in other countries shows that if this is not done there will be serious economic, social, and environmental consequences.

Subfields: Ocean Engineering, Political Science and International Relations, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bad0e2cbf01ad976b4bb557022b479e8ede090c1

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