Woefully, according to a newspaper report from Islamabad, this years World Water Day, on March 22, with its theme "Shared Water - Shared Opportunities" signifying the importance of trans-boundary rivers, lakes and waters to link population of different countries went ignored by ministries or Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).
However, a redeeming feature of the occasion was that the seven-day fifth World Water Forum on the worlds water catastrophe ended in Istanbul the same day, with a pledge by over 100 countries to strive for clean water and sanitation for billions in need and fight drought and flood, climaxing the biggest-ever conference on the planets freshwater crisis. It is, however, another matter that some countries condemned it as flawed while activists rejected the event itself as a "trade show."
Nevertheless, as the declaration put it, the world is facing rapid and unprecedented global changes, including population growth, migration, urbanisation, climate change, desertification, drought, degradation and land use, economic and diet changes. Significantly, it specified a schedule of non-binding recommendations, including greater co-operation to ease disputes over water, measures to address floods and water scarcity, better management of resources and curbing pollution of rivers, lakes and aquifers.
In so far as Pakistan is concerned, the World Water Day will be seen as having its own distinctive importance. For one thing, it provides an inimitable opportunity to stimulate people to participate in activities and evolving initiatives for conservation and better management of water resources. Of course, it goes without saying that water shortages and other water-related anxieties pose severe threats to the country.
Add to this the fast depletion of its water resources, and it will bring to the fore the peril of a massive magnitude, beckoning the people and the government to brace for it in a befitting manner. Again, to quote an Asian Development Bank report, "The situation is becoming precarious, as water availability in Pakistan has decreased from 5,000 cubic meters per capita in 1950s to 1,000 m3 in 2007, mainly because of increase in population, inefficient irrigation, corruption, mismanagement and unequal water rights."
Moreover, according to the international water standard and quality, the countries whose water reservoirs are below 1,000 cubic meters per person are considered among the chronic water shortage level. Worse, the environment and international water experts are stated to have seen Pakistan headed fast to this level.
At the same time, it has also been noted that the quality of the living environment for the majority of the countrys population remains dismally poor, as no more than 36 percent of households had tap water supply in 2006-07, up from 26 percent in 1998-99.
More to this, disquieting also happens to be the differences between urban and rural areas, as 62 percent of urban households had access to tap water compared to only 22 percent of rural households. Now that most of our natural lakes have disappeared during the last 50 years, it makes evil foreboding for the future too.
Small wonder, experts at an international conference last year, focusing various aspects of Pakistans water crisis, traced them to inefficient irrigation, abysmal urban sanitation facilities, unequal water rights, growing population, rising demand, and snow and ice shrinkage in the Himalayas. All in all, time will appear to have come for the country to move fast with the expansion of water supplies through water storage (ie dams) to a new emphasis on the conservation of limited water resources.
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