Policy diagnostics for Pakistan’s water security challenge

• Published date: 01 May 2019
• Author: Shahbaz Khan
• Date: 01 May 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wwp2.12006

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wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/wwp2 World Water Policy. 2019;5:8–14.

© 2019 Policy Studies Organization.

Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

DOI: 10.1002/wwp2.12006

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Policy diagnostics for Pakistan’s water security

challenge

ShahbazKhan

*The opinions expressed by the author are his own views and do not reflect the position of his organization.

UNESCO Regional Science Bureau for

Asia and the Pacific, Jakarta, Indonesia

Correspondence

Shahbaz Khan, UNESCO Regional Science

Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, Jakarta,

Indonesia.

Email: S.Khan@unesco.org

Abstract

Pakistan is a country already facing water shortages for

urban as well as rural water uses. A number of compre-

hensive water sector reports, a climate change policy, and

a national water policy exist, but implementation remains

limited due to financial, political, and institutional chal-

lenges. The Indus river basin water system is the backbone

of the water security in Pakistan and is suffering structural

and nonstructural issues of adequate water storage, timely

water conveyance, efficient water distribution, and appro-

priate consumptive use challenges. Inspirational integrated

approaches such as integrated water resources management

could not be implemented due to national and provincial

mandates on the management of surface and ground waters

and associated equitable distribution of costs and benefits

among stakeholders. This paper presents an overview of the

challenges and possible policy options through a diagnos-

tic water balance analysis considering population, cropping

patterns, system efficiencies, and storage options.

KEYWORDS

climate responsive, efficiency, Indus storage, irrigation, SDGs, water

balance diagnostics

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INTRODUCTION

Pakistan is a country characterized by great landscape variations from snow‐covered northern moun-

tains to irrigated floodplains of Indus, vast coastal lands and extremely dry desserts of the Balochistan