Katas Raj Temple Case Exposes Pakistan's Groundwater Crisis
By RiazHaq
CA
The Supreme Court of Pakistan has recently taken notice of the drying water pond at Katas Raj temple located in Chakwal district in the Punjab province. Hindus believe that it was formed from the tears that Lord Shiva shed after the death of his wife Sati.
Why is the pond drying up? What is happening to the water source that used to keep it full? Is it symptomatic of a much larger life-and-death issue ofwater stressPakistan faces? Let's explore the answers to these questions.
Groundwater Depletion
The Katas Raj temple pond is a victim of the falling water table due to increasing use of groundwater in Pakistan. The United States, Pakistan, and India are responsible for two-thirds of that outsize groundwater use globally, according to a report by University College London researcher Carole Dalin. Nearly half of this groundwater is used to grow wheat and rice crops for domestic consumption and exports. This puts Pakistan among the world's largest exporters of its rapidly depleting groundwater.
NASA Satellite Maps
The Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources is working with the United States' National Air and Space Administration (NASA) to monitor groundwater resources in the country.
NASA's water stress maps show extreme water stress across most of Pakistan and northern, western and southern parts of India.
The US space agency uses Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) to measure the earth's groundwater. GRACE’s pair of identical satellites, launched in 2002, map tiny variations in the Earth's gravity. Since water has mass, it affects these measurements. Therefore, GRACE data can help scientists monitor where the water is and how it changes over time, according to NASA.
Aquifer Recharge
Building large dams is only part of the solution to water stress in Pakistan. The other, more important part, is building structures to trap rain water for recharging aquifers across the country.
Pakistan's highly water-stressed Punjab province is beginning to recognize the need for replacing groundwater. The Punjab Government is currently in the process of planning a project to recharge aquifers for groundwater management in the province by developing the economical and sustainable technology and to recharge aquifer naturally and artificially at the available site across the Punjab. It has allocated Rs 582.249 million to execute this project over a period of four years.
Punjab Pilot Project
The Punjab pilot project is intended to recharge groundwater by building food water ponds in "old Mailsi Canal and supplement it by installing suitable recharging mechanism like recharging well as pilot project. Moreover, to develop efficient and sustainable techniques for artificial recharge of Aquifer using surplus rain, flood and surface water and also strengthening the ground water monitoring network in Punjab as well as to identify the different potential feasible sites for artificial recharge."
Summary
The Karas Raj Pond case in the Supreme Court has brought national attention to the nation's existential crisis with respect to its water resource depletion. The country needs to urgently address this looming crisis with a multi-pronged program. It needs to build large dams and recharge its groundwater reservoirs. At the same time, Pakistan needs to find ways to conserve and use more efficiently the water resources it has. The country needs to particularly focus on efficient farm irrigation and planting of less water-intensive crops because the agriculture sector uses over 90% of all available water.
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