Pakistan's Need for Water Reservoirs

Pakistan’s Need for Water Reservoirs
Pakistan has been blessed with a rich water resource which has helped the economic development of the country mainly through agriculture. Pakistan has a long and proud history of the development of water resources and the infrastructure for delivering water to where it is needed, including the vast Indus Plain, constituting the largest contiguous irrigation system in the world.
The total land area of Pakistan is 310,322 square miles or 88 million hectares of land out of which 20 million hectares are used for agriculture. Farming produces about one-quarter of all of the nation’s wealth (GDP) and employs half of its workforce. This is a triumph, for Pakistan is a naturally dry and largely infertile country. Only about one-quarter of the land is suitable for farming, and three-quarters of that is only fertile because of intensive irrigation. The river system of Indus and its tributaries provide Pakistan with some of the most fertile land in the subcontinent. The water availability in our rivers is, however, highly erratic and unreliable. The highest annual water availability in the recorded history from 1922 to date was 186.79MAF in 1959-1960 and minimum of 95.99MAF in 2001-2002. The annual flow of water in Pakistan's rivers is 83 per cent in Kharif season while it is just 17 in Rabi season, whereas, we need 60 per cent of water in Kharif and 40 per cent in Rabi.
Pakistan, with its economy dependent on natural resources, faces the daunting challenge of the growing imbalance between an increasing population and the availability of natural resources to meet the basic needs of the people. As the population continues to grow the country is approaching the utilization limits of its water resources and Pakistan is becoming a water scarce country. As never before, there is now a strong and growing need to manage this precious resource more carefully and efficiently to ensure water for all on a sustainable basis. Private sector can be...