Only Half Of Population Will Have Safe Water Access By 2030: PCRWR Chief

News Desk

Islamabad: Presently 61 per cent of the population drinks contaminated water and only 50 per cent of the populace is expected to have access to clean drinking water by 2030, said Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resource (PCRWR) Chairman Dr Mohammad Ashraf.

He said at a multi-stakeholder consultative workshop in Islamabad organised by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) on Transformative Futures for Water Security (TFWS). Dr Ashraf told that Islamabad is experiencing groundwater depletion at a rate of one metre per year.

According to the PCRWR Report 2021, only 19 per cent improvement in the availability of safe drinking water has been observed between 2002 and 2020 (on an average one per cent every year). Pakistan would be unable to fulfil its domestic and international duties if this situation persisted.

The report further states that only 39 per cent of the monitored water sources are safe for drinking purpose and consuming 61 per cent of the unsafe water sources may pose serious public health risk due to waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea, dysentery, typhoid, hepatitis, and cancer.

Experts at the workshop said that poor water governance and system inefficiency are major factors that led the water crisis in the country. IWMI Director General Dr Mark Smith informed that the issue of water security include a number of factors, like the quantity and quality of water needed for human health, life ecosystem, and agricultural production.

“The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) report on climate change and the environment is quite clear as it emphasises the rising frequency of natural disasters. The question of how to lead this audacious move toward water security is what motivates our programme, and the solution is that the youth will take the initiative, he continued.

Recommendations

IWMI Board Member Simi Kamal suggested that developing water-sharing agreements in rivers with a focus on population is another crucial area along with the youth bulge. The other experts noted that in order to handle the country’s expanding water security, the nation need to create an effective network of all societal segments, from policymakers to civil society organisations, with a focus on mainstreaming young.

“The nation needs to increase the effectiveness of on-farm water use, governance, site-specific solutions, improved legislation, and mainstreaming of youngsters,” they added. Youth participation in all programmes is essential because they consume water and needed to change their behaviour towards its commodity usage.