Water Scarcity

Question 1

When Pak will run dry?

Answer 1

It may run dry by 2025, according to the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources

Question 2

Why we need dams;

why we are not building The Kalabagh Dam?

Answer 2

To store water, we need to build the dams.

Since the provinces were divided over Kalabagh Dam, the government has decided to build Diamer Bhasha and Mohmand Dams, which have political consensus.

Question 3

How much Diamer Bhasha and Mohmand Dams will cost?

Answer 3

Rs 1,450 billion.

Question 4

The Dam fund was created by the chief justice on

Answer 4

July, 06, 2018

Question 5

Solution besides Dam?

Answer 5

• Pakistan does not need a mega dam, but mega vision.
• we have enough water in our natural system and global warming will result in more rainfall and an increase in the water supply.

Question 6

Pak water system has ______ MAF of water per Year

Answer 6

145 million Acre Feet (MAF)

opined by Hassan Abbas; an expert in water sources.

Question 7

Agriculture needs ____
industry needs ______
while household consumption is _____

Answer 7

50 MAF,
10 MAF
17 MAF

We have twice as much water as we need – there is one problem though, a bulk of it is available in the monsoon only.

Question 8

Three main Problems regarding water scarcity?

Answer 8

1. Waste by the agriculture sector
2. Pollution of water resources, which makes our rivers and aquifers unfit for use
3. Mismanagement and corruption

Question 9

Why Dams will not solve the three problems regarding water scarcity?

Answer 9

Dams will not solve any of these three problems.

Plus, they are expensive, environmentally destructive, and their construction takes years.

Besides this, they have a limited life because they silt up.

Question 10

Dam-equivalents?

Answer 10

we need dam-equivalents.
(A DE comprises suites of contemporary technological, structural, and institutional interventions within a hydrologic regime, which mimic the purposes for which large dams are built)

Unlike a huge dam, these are small interventions in a water system and do the same thing as a big dam.

However, they don’t have the same disadvantages as big dams.

Dam equivalents are cheaper and more sustainable than big dams.

They are faster to build and pay back more.

> The Rohri Canal alone has the potential to earn $36 billion, nearly 12 times what Kalabagh Dam would have earned

Question 11

our _____-kilometer river network has ____ canals, which consume 95% of our water

Answer 11

3,500

42

Dam-equivalents can be set up at each of these canals.

Question 12

per capita surface water availability of______cubic metres per year in 1951 turned into around _____ cubic metres in 2016. likely to further drop to about _____ cubic meters by 2025.

Answer 12

5,260

1,000

860

Question 13

(PCRWR) ?

Answer 13

the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources

Question 14

The PCRWR describe that Pakistan reached ….?

Answer 14

the “water stress line” in 1990 and crossed the “water scarcity line” in 2005.

Question 15

National Water Policy

Answer 15

• NWP took 70 years to develop (April 2018)

The NWP acknowledges that irrigated agriculture is the backbone of the economy and consumes around 95 percent of the water resources

Question 16

NWP targets?

Answer 16

the access to clean and safe drinking water and sanitation facilities for all

the promotion of greater urban water management and revision of urban water tariffs

enhancing recovery and reducing system losses,

treatment of industrial effluents and

provision of sustainable supply of water for everyone

Question 17

long standing issues regarding water woes?

Answer 17

long-standing issues of poor management, substandard water quality and inequitable delivery

(These problems are a consequence of our static water policies, poor governance, institutional weaknesses and lack of accountability — and the magic wand of infrastructure development is not the solution.)

Question 18

The focus of any water solution should be?

Answer 18

the focus of any water solution should be on

i) provision of clean water for drinking and domestic use to all Pakistanis,
ii) equitable water supplies to all farmers (and industrial users) as per predefined water rights, and
iii) extraction of water from the Indus basin to levels that are environmentally sustainable

Question 19

The Indus River and its tributaries provide ____MAF surface water

out of this _____MAF or 72 percent is being diverted into the canal system

losing about _____percent of surface water

Answer 19

147

106

28

(It is this 28 percent of water that needs to be conserved)

Question 20

Types of Sub Surface dams?

Answer 20

1. Sand dams and sub-surface dams
   (store water under the ground)
2. A check dam placed in the ditch
   (most suitable in hill torrent areas)
3. Spreading Basins
   (method involves surface flooding of water in basins)
4. Recharge Pits and Shafts
5. Recharge wells:
   (Recharge or injection wells are used to directly recharge the deep-water bearing strata.)

Question 21

Advantages of Sub Surface Dams

Answer 21

1. it stores water underground. Therefore, it does not seriously damage the environment, nor does it cause social problem such as the forced migration of local people
2. Does not lose reserved water by evaporation because water is stored underground and there is very little evaporation
3. Reserved water using a subsurface dam is of fairly of good quality because it is stored underground, and it can be used like ordinary well water
4. More stable because it is burried underground and does not need maintenace
5. subsurface dam system is renewable because it is charged with rainfall. Therefore, subsurface dam does not exhaust water resources
6. the only quick, short term, inexpensive and reliable solution to water conservation is sub surface storage till such time we are able to construct large reservoirs