Despite being blessed with massive natural sources of water flowing down from the Himalayas,
Pakistan is the fourth largest user of groundwater after India, the United States, and China.
This massive and ongoing groundwater extraction feeds the country's economically critical
agriculture sector.
Yet all of this pumping is also unsustainable.
The Pakistan groundwater situation threatens the country's water, food, and energy security.
In this video, we are going to talk a little bit about the groundwater over in Pakistan.
## The Waters of Pakistan
Let us start off with Pakistan's water profile.
The country owns significant water resources, but how those resources are allocated and
used is complicated.
Pakistan's weather is rather arid.
More than 75% of its rainfall comes during the monsoon season.
The rest of the year, the weather is extremely dry - leading to higher than normal evaporation.
The most significant surface water supply in the country is the Indus River.
One of the world's biggest rivers, it crosses several countries and drains into an area
of over 450,000 square miles.
Unfortunately, Pakistan has to share this river with a number of other countries - most
significantly India.
The Partition of India in 1947 majorly divided the river as well as its associated irrigation
systems - and led to a significant water dispute the year after.
## Indus Water Treaty
It was not until 1960 that the two countries signed the Indus Water Treaty, mediated by
the World Bank.
Pakistan received water from three western rivers - the Jhelum, Chenab and Indus.
These rivers together provide about 170-180 billion cubic meters of water each year on
average.
Nearly 96% of Pakistan's renewable water sources come from this single river system.
These rivers in turn depend on snow and ice melt from western Himalayan glaciers for some
50-80% of its water.
It is kind of amazing to think about how so many of Asia's major rivers depend on the
Himalayas for water.
Anyway, this treaty created peace, but it has also indirectly led to over-exploitation
of Pakistan’s groundwater.
## Groundwater
Before we can continue, we should first discuss groundwater.
When most people hear the word "groundwater", they generally conjure up fantasies of water
sloshing around in cavern lakes and rivers deep under the ground.
But that's fantasy, not reality.
The reality is that most groundwater exists in pores within the rock and soil.
All rocks have pores, but some rocks are more permeable than others.
Like sandstone, which is basically a rock made out of sand.
The deeper we go beneath the surface, the more water we find in those pores.
A rock with its pores entirely filled is saturated.
When we drill a hole into that rock, the water leaves its old home within the rocks' pores
and enters the hole.
This happens until the water reaches a constant level.
The level at which this happens is called the "water table".
When water hits the ground, it moves downward through the soil and subsoil to the underlying
rock.
If the rock is permeable then it keeps going until it hits and joins the water table.
This is groundwater recharge.
## Agriculture
Water - and groundwater in particular - is very important to Pakistan because so many
of its 220 million people are farmers.
Pakistan is the world's 8th largest food producing country.
Over 95% of total water extractions - including 85% of its extracted groundwater - is used
for agriculture.
This is far higher than the global average of 40%.
Some 40-45% of Pakistan's entire labor force directly depend on agriculture to earn a living.
Though Pakistan has in many ways transitioned into being a services economy, agriculture
still generates 18-22% of the country's GDP and 60% of its foreign exchange.
Pakistan grows a great deal of things - like chickpeas, apples, onions, tangerines, and
such.
But 75% of the area is cultivated for just four very water-thirsty crops - wheat, rice,
sugarcane, and cotton.
Many of Pakistan's aforementioned industrial and services economies depend on these agricultural
outputs.
For instance, sugar mills, rice huskers, and of course textiles.
This heavy reliance on these water-thirsty cash crops has a bit of interesting history
behind it.
What began as a way to feed the masses eventually turned into a critical economic policy tool.
## Green Revolution
During the 1960s, President Ayub Khan invited the Green Revolution to come to Pakistan.
If you are not entirely familiar with the Green Revolution, it involves the work of
Dr. Norman Borlaug, who believed that genetically manipulated food crops like rice and grain
can save the world from mass hunger.
New fertilizers and highly productive strains of crops - including the Mexi-Pak strain of
wheat - were an immediate hit.
In 1959-1960, Pakistanis produced just 801 kilograms of wheat per hectare.
In 1996-1997, Pakistani yields more than doubled up to 2,026 kilograms per hectare.
Similar things happened for rice, and their plentiful bounties filled up the national
grain silos.
Rightfully so, the Green Revolution is often credited for helping Pakistan avoid a recurrence
of famines that occurred in the mid-1960s.
And it has also allowed the country to slowly but steadily grow its per capita income even
as the country's population exploded from 40 or so million in 1959 to 140 million in
1996 to 220 million today.
An incredible achievement.
But remember, Dr. Borlaug envisioned the Green Revolution as a way to help feed the hungry
masses.
It was never designed as a golden path to national wealth.
But that was what Pakistan used it for.
## Green Growth
The ruling Pakistani government came to power on a somewhat contradictory political agenda.
The land ownership situation in both India and Pakistan after World War II was like many
other countries in Asia - vastly unequal.
The rural poor worked land they did not own, unable to generate wealth.
The government's founding party - the Muslim League - won their support by promising to
eradicate rural poverty.
And how would be the best way to pull off such a thing?
Governments in Taiwan and South Korea did a "land to the tiller" program that expropriated
excess agricultural land from the landlords and gave it to the tenant farmers.
In other words, land reform.
Land reform would be the obvious thing to do.
However, it was not possible in Pakistan due to promises made to the landlords.
To win the support of the landlords in the Punjab, Sindh, and Balochistan provinces,
the Pakistan government offered them political power.
So now you have this tricky situation.
How do you improve the lot of the rural tenant farmers without land reform?
Thusly, the government invited the Green Revolution as a way to grow itself out of this problem
- literally and economically.
What started off as a way to feed the masses has turned into - for better or worse - an
economic engine.
Pakistan's national economic growth is closely tied to its agricultural growth.
Such a system requires a massive irrigation system.
## Indus Basin Irrigation System
As I mentioned, the treaty guaranteed Pakistan's use of three rivers in the Indus basin.
The country promptly began construction on a vast network of 12 inter-river canals, 23
barrages, and 3 major dams to harness those waters for irrigation.
This system is called the Indus Basin Irrigation System or IBIS.
Stretching over 57,000 kilometers, it is one of the world's largest integrated irrigation
systems.
Altogether it diverts about 75% of Pakistan's allocated water flow.
The gravity-run irrigation system delivers a pre-determined amount of water to farmers
based on how much land they own as well as what water is available to deliver.
Unfortunately, the system's delivery efficiency is very poor.
About 60-70% of the river's water is wasted.
This is in part due to leakages, a high rate of evaporation, and vast underpricing.
Canal water is priced at just a fifth of its actual operating cost.
As a result, the system carries an amount of water equivalent to only 30 days of river
run off - or about 9% of the system's total available water.
This is in comparison to irrigation systems in other countries.
900 days for the Colorado and Murray Darling rivers.
500 days for the Orange River in South Africa.
And so on.
The irrigation system's shortcomings have forced Pakistan's farmers to find new sources
of water.
Unable to fulfill their needs from the surface, they have in turn looked downwards.
## Water Logged
Pakistanis have been drilling water wells into the ground for thousands of years.
The Greeks documented examples of horizontal wells in the province of Balochistan as far
back as 2,500 years ago.
But in 1960, on the eve of the Indus Water Treaty, most of the country's water usage
came from the surface.
For instance, in the Punjab Province groundwater was just 8% of farmer water supply.
Certain government policies would change this.
Pakistan is a very flat country, with poor natural drainage.
When the country floods - as it might often happen - the water has nowhere to go but down
into the ground.
This raises the water table dangerously close to the surface.
A high water table in turns causes the soil to become heavily saturated with water - a
situation called "water logging".
This hurts most crops for two reasons.
First, it blocks air from getting to the roots of plants.
Most major cash crops - with the exception of rice - die when their soils become water
logged.
Second, water logging raises the amount of salt in the soil.
Groundwater tends to be mineralized and a little salty.
As it rises towards the surface, it evaporates in the heat - leaving salt behind.
And as a folklorist might testify, salt in the earth is never a great thing.
## SCARP
The Pakistan government has long sought solutions to fix the water logging issue and help its
rural farmers.
In 1912, the Punjab government closed canals, planted eucalyptus groves, built storm drains
and lined canals.
None of this really worked.
So starting in 1954 and then really ramping up in the 1960s, the government introduced
in several provinces a new crash program called the Salinity Control and Reclamation Project
or SCARP.
These involved digging some number of tube-wells in the country's salinity-affected areas to
pump up groundwater.
The exact number is a bit unclear - anywhere like 15,000 to 20,000.
These are small, electrically-powered tube wells pumping water from 40 to 120 meters
deep.
## Private
The government set up and promoted the SCARP program as a measure to control rising water
tables.
It seems to have largely done that in most areas.
Pleased with the results, the government also realized that groundwater could help expand
the country's total cultivated land.
So starting in the 1970s, they encouraged farmers to drill with cheap loans for tubewells,
free pumpsets, and most critically - subsidized power to run these machines.
In the Punjab and Sindh provinces, electricity charges for tubewells were 40% less than the
normal rate.
In the Balochistan province, it was 60%.
Nobody in the government apparently thought much about groundwater or aquifer supplies.
Hardly anyone was even measuring those levels - the SCARP Monitoring Organization only measured
groundwater levels within SCARP areas, not outside of it.
## Backfire
This program succeeded.
Perhaps a little too much.
Private landowners started drilling for groundwater all over the place.
In the Punjab province, the irrigated area almost doubled from 8.6 million hectares in
1960 to 16 million in 2018.
In the late 1980s, the government withdrew all public support except for the power subsidy.
By the early 1990s, it was estimated that there were over 400,000 unregulated tubewells
across the Indus Plains.
Drought periods accelerate drilling.
During one such drought from 1996 to 2001, surface water supplies in the Punjab province
declined by 46%.
Accordingly, the number of privately owned tubewells increased by 59%.
Overpumping causes the water table to decline.
In Balochistan during the early 2000s, the amount of decline was about 2-3 meters a year.
5-15% of its cultivated areas saw water tables dropping beyond their drillable ranges.
The farmers in turn bring in bigger, more powerful engines so that they can drill deeper.
Simple electric motors gave way to locally manufactured, high-speed diesel engines called
"peters".
The cycle continues.
## Today
Today, there are some 800,000 to 1.2 million private tubewells operating across Pakistan.
And despite some improvements made to surface water supplies, the country uses more groundwater
than ever before.
This is in part due to the country’s rather wasteful water usage habits.
In 2017, Pakistan ranked near the bottom in water productivity - producing just $1.40
per cubic meter of water withdrawn.
By comparison, Malaysia produced $55 per cubic meter of water withdrawn, China $21 and Turkey
$13.60.
Some 85% of the country's farmers are small and unsophisticated - mostly producing food
for themselves or their livestock.
The Green Revolution helped raise their food yields but those hit limits in the 1990s.
Pakistani farmers lack education and more importantly financial resources to invest
in better growing methods.
Despite providing 20% of the country's GDP, the farm sector contributes less than 0.1%
of the country's tax revenues.
As a result the yields on their thirstiest crops - wheat, sugarcane, rice, and so on
- trail their cohorts in China or the US.
So they use more water to grow fewer crops than their counterparts, and it barely makes
enough money for them to get by.
## Conclusion
I know that this is a bit of a strange topic to pick in light of the recent tragic news
in Pakistan of massive floods.
It is true that the monsoon floods will do a whole lot to recharge the aquifers.
Depending on the area, they can add about 0.2 meters to even 0.6 meters of groundwater
per season.
Recharging is never as fast as withdrawal.
But the ground can only absorb so much water all at once.
And floods notwithstanding, groundwater withdrawals continue to outpace recharges.
Without water pricing and supply reforms, overall water demand will continue marching
ever higher.
Certain areas are already suffering from water scarcity.
Just 36% of the population has access to safe and reliable drinking water.
And because so much water is for growing food, water shortages eventually lead to food shortages
for the country's most vulnerable people.
You need to rebuild the Indus system's crumbling irrigation infrastructure.
You need to educate and loan farmers money so that they can adopt new more water-efficient
systems like drip or sprinkler integration.
And you have to re-price water to its true value so people can start using it more efficiently
- while at the same time stamping out corruption.
Organizations like the water mafia are infamous.
Yet all of this requires financial resources.
In a country already struggling from a debt crisis, finding the money to do all this is
a hard ask.
And so the country keeps on pumping.