Wapda's ongoing plans to line three main canals in Sindh is a much needed step in the right direction, enabling the country to potentially save huge quantity of potable water. According to United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) - a United States agency which oversees water dynamics - unlined canals can lose up to 50 percent of their transported water due to seepages, resulting in a loss of nearly 30 to 50 million acre feet of water each year.
The cost of this loss ranges from $20/acre ft to $300/acre ft, depending upon the country's land, water availability, weather conditions and so forth. Going by these statistics, Pakistan suffers a loss of about $600 million per annum assuming an optimistic scenario of a loss of 30 MAF with the cost being $20/acre ft. In the worse case scenario, this loss can potentially amount to $15 billion. But, even if one assumes the optimistic picture, in absence of accurate and reliable data, the loss turns out to be nearly Rs 50 billion at current level of rupee-dollar parity.
And for an agrarian economy like Pakistan, with 70 percent of the 22 million hectares cultivated land using canal water system, managed by 40 percent of total labour force and 70 percent of exports stemming from agriculture related products, the impact of this water loss becomes even more massive, demanding an expedient action.
The urgency of the matter becomes even more severe, in the light of recent warning that Pakistan is an "extremely risky region" in terms of food security whereas its population is expected to increase about two folds to 357 million by 2050, according to the UN medium variant projection.
In this context, the government's recent launched initiatives to implement different water saving strategies are commendable but demand the right execution. The government, therefore, is suggested to ensure highest quality of construction, continuous research on modern lining techniques evolved over time and used by other Asian countries, prioritise lining works on the basis of need, encourage private investments for water system modernisation and ensure clear communication between the regulators and farmers.
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