As the monsoons arrive, once again, Pakistan is facing a water crisis, shifting from drought-like scenarios to the threat of a flood. The seasonal threat is no longer creeping but ferocious. As seasonal relief in monsoon showers may seem to provide, the bitter truth remains the same: our water security is falling, drop after drop, each passing year.

Where once favoured with powerful rivers and glacial flows, present-day Pakistan is a water-scarce nation. Water availability on a head-per-capita basis has crashed down to 800–1,017 cubic meters from 5,260 in 1951. By 2035, we could dip below 500–660 cubic meters, a threshold of pure scarcity, while UNDP predicts extreme scarcity below 500 cubic meters in 2025.

This is no future prospect; it is present in the dried-out canals in Punjab, Sindh’s saline groundwater, drop in water tables in Balochistan, and failing supply lines in main cities like Karachi and Lahore. But behind the green disaster is the less spoken but no less lethal, twin disaster: the disparity between what we need to pay for water security and what we pay.

The cost of inaction

Pakistan’s water economy is bleeding. Analyst estimates and official sources put inefficiencies, climate-related disasters, and old infrastructure at Rs3-4 trillion every year, about 3–4 percent of GDP. The losses occur due to floods, droughts, inefficient irrigation, and crumbling infrastructure. Agriculture, which accounts for more than 90 percent of usable water, loses on conveyance estimated at between 40–60 percent, endangering both productivity and rural livelihoods.

Consider, for example, a rural Punjabi smallholder, Abdul Rehman. During the lean season, his wheat crop shriveled for lack of water as irrigation canals dried up, prompting him to sell livestock to make ends meet. Just as in lower Sindh, Ghulam........

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