Emerging Challenges of Groundwater in Pakistan and the Way Forward
Groundwater in Pakistan faces over-extraction, declining quality, and poor management. Learn key challenges and sustainable solutions for the future.
Introduction
Groundwater is one of Pakistan’s most vital yet increasingly threatened natural resources. As the backbone of agriculture, domestic, and industrial needs, it supports millions of livelihoods. However, unsustainable use, over-extraction, and lack of proper management have turned it into one of the most pressing water challenges for the country. This unchecked exploitation has created a looming crisis: falling water tables, saltwater intrusion, and widespread deterioration of groundwater quality. With increasing population, industrial growth, and urbanization, Pakistan now faces serious challenges in sustaining this resource.
This blog explores the availability, development, emerging challenges, and management issues of groundwater in Pakistan, followed by practical insights into the way forward for sustainable groundwater management.
Groundwater Availability
Pakistan is an agriculture country. Agriculture contributes 40% in employment share and 60% in import earning. Ground water is one of the various resources which plays vital role in areas where the irrigation system is not fulfilling the irrigation needs. Pakistan primary ground water resource is in the irrigated areas of the Indus Basin, while the secondary source is the area outside the Indus Basin. Indus basin is underlain by unconfined aquifer covering about 40 million acres (MA) of surface area of which 15 MA is fresh and 25 MA is saline. The aquifer receives its direct recharge from natural precipitation, river flows and continued seepage from canal, distributaries and watercourses. Indus basin aquifer ranked as the 2nd most over stressed underground water reserve in the world. It contributes more than 50% in agriculture sector, around 70% in domestic use and 100% in industrial sector.
The safe yield of groundwater is 53.3 MAF (Punjab 40 MAF, Sindh 10 MAF, KPK 2.4 MAF and Balochistan 0.9 MAF. The groundwater potential and use in AJK is very limited as compare to others provinces. Estimated province wise groundwater balance is shown below:
Groundwater Development
Large scale extraction and use of groundwater for irrigated agriculture in Indus basin started in 1960 from SCARP) project. Development of groundwater remains key focus and its management could not get full attention which resulted in uncontrolled and unregulated abstraction of this precious resource. Average annual abstraction of groundwater is more than 55 MAF which has already crossed the safe yield limit. Historic data shows that around 1.2 million private tubewells with average discharge of 1 cusec are working in Pakistan. Out of these 800,000 are in Punjab. Now although there is clear evidence that groundwater is being over-exploited, yet 10,000 additional wells are being put into service every year. According to recent estimated 13% of these tubewells are run by electricity whereas rest of 87% use diesel engines. Diesel engines are preferred by farmers due to low installation cost and assured operation.
Groundwater exploitation has brought numerous economic and environmental benefits. It transformed the concept of low and uncertain crop yield to a more secure and predictable crop production. Crop production increased from 20% to 100% and use of groundwater in conjunction with canal water supplies has helped in maintaining the salt balance in the soil. Canal water supplies are 40% deficient of crop water requirement which is fulfilled by groundwater. About 80% farmers used groundwater in conjunction with canal water whereas remaining 20% totally dependent on groundwater. Area irrigated by groundwater has increased from 6.7 to 8.4 MA whereas the area irrigated by canal water has decreased from 19.5 to 17.0 MA.
Emerging Challenges of Groundwater
1. Overdraft/over-Exploitation
Unregulated and uncontrolled use of groundwater is diminishing the relative accessibility. Depth to water table has decline in many areas of the Indus Basin which is evident that there is serious imbalance between abstraction and recharge. Due to excessive urbanization and construction of impermeable membrane over the natural strata, rate of groundwater extraction is much higher than its recharge rate. Many tubewells have gone out of production whereas production of remaining wells has reduced below 50% in many areas. Due to prevailing situation of this increased in depth to water table, bore depth has to been increased which ultimately led to salt water intrusion in fresh aquifer in many areas and increased in installation and operational cost.
Depletion of groundwater is more in non-canal command area where irrigated agriculture is only dependent on groundwater. Excessive mining of aquifer in fresh groundwater area has resulted in falling water tables and groundwater has become inaccessible in 15% and 20% of the irrigated area of Punjab and Baluchistan respectively. The electricity for pumping groundwater is heavily subsidized in Baluchistan. The construction cost of deep electricity tubewell (greater than 65ft) is five times as compare to shallow tubewells (less than 20ft). The rich farmers having deep tubewells are the real beneficiary and poor are not getting benefit of this subsidy which ultimately creating unrest in society. This policy also exacerbating the problems of groundwater over-draft in Balochistan.
2. Deterioration of Quality
Groundwater under the Indus irrigation system is plentiful however quality is constraint. Key indicators to determine the quality of groundwater are EC, TDS, SAR and RSC. Quality of groundwater in Indus Plain varies widely, both spatially and with depth. Around 77% (10 MA) area of Punjab has access to fresh groundwater. Saline water is mostly encountered in central doab area and Cholistan area in southern Punjab is well known for highly brackish water unfit for drinking purpose. In some parts of Punjab, there are also reports of high fluoride content(7-12mh/l) and high concentration of arsenic (50 ug/l) in groundwater. In Sind province, about 28% of area has access to fresh groundwater. Large areas are underlain by poor quality of groundwater. In Sindh, the area of fresh ground water is confined to a narrow strip along the river Indus. Excessive pumping of this layer is causing salt water intrusion into fresh groundwater areas which resulted in abandoning of about 200 public tubewells located in fresh groundwater zones of Sindh province.
3. Management Issues
The groundwater use has almost reached the sustainable limit. Increasing population and industrialization has put this precious resource under severe stress. In IBIS, groundwater is usually used in conjunction with surface water which helps the farmers in decreasing the salinity of irrigation water in an attempt to avoid soil salinization. In most of the canal command areas, conjunctive use of ground water and surface water is equally practiced in head and tail end of canal system. One of the key disadvantages of this unmanaged conjunctive use is that upstream areas are subjected to waterlogging whereas tail end users are aggravating their salinity problems due to bad quality of the groundwater. Therefore, effective conjunctive use should be encouraged that will allow a combination of surface and groundwater to farmers in such a way that equity in availability of water of acceptable quality is ensured all along the channel.
Pakistan must learn that development of groundwater resources without proper planning and management strategy has paid back very badly. Therefore, Pakistan needs a serious debate about whether to pump their aquifer to maximum and face the consequences thereafter. Or be more proactive now, better manage abstraction and invest in recharge today. Protecting groundwater through management and technical measures like regulatory framework, water licensing, artificial recharge especially for threatened aquifer and should adopt integrated water resource management concept
Conclusion
Groundwater management in Pakistan has received little attention, leading to aquifers under severe stress and threatening long-term sustainability. Extraction has reached its peak. Without urgent action, the situation may become irreversible.
A dedicated management and regulatory authority is urgently required to prevent undesirable depletion and deterioration.
Way Forward
To secure Pakistan’s future water needs, the following steps are crucial:
- Regulatory Framework: Develop policies for efficient groundwater use.
- Monitoring System: Begin with monitoring, then shift to management.
- Data Collection: Define groundwater basin boundaries, measure percolation, depletion, and recharge with precision.
- Artificial Recharge: Store water underground during wet years for use in droughts. Inflatable rubber dams on Punjab rivers present potential sites for recharge.
- Awareness Campaigns: Use media, NGOs, and schools to raise awareness about conservation and self-regulation.
- Education: Include water conservation in curricula at all levels.
References
https://iwaponline.com/jwcc/article/15/10/4919/105078/Water-resources-in-Pakistan-a-comprehensive
https://www.samaa.tv/2087321422-pakistan-s-groundwater-levels-fall-rapidly-by-over-5
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-36131-9_6
FAQs
Why is groundwater important in Pakistan?
Groundwater is a crucial source of Pakistan's water resource system, with an estimated 150 billion cubic meters volume. It is the principal source for over 60% of the country's irrigation requirements and about 90% of its water provisions (JatBaloch et al. 2022).
Why is groundwater pollution increasing in Pakistan?
Hofmann et al. (2015) found a rise in groundwater pollution in Pakistan due to mining, inadequate wastewater treatment from industries and households, and natural causes (Aslam et al., 2018).
