Pakistan's groundwater crisis deepens as experts warn of gallons of water wastage

Lahore [Pakistan], July 11 (ANI): Pakistan is rapidly moving towards a serious water emergency as experts caution that billions of gallons of rainwater continue to flow into drains and rivers every year instead of replenishing depleted underground reserves, highlighting what they describe as years of poor water management, as reported by The Express Tribune.

According to The Express Tribune, water specialists have warned that Punjab’s groundwater is shrinking at an alarming pace, with Lahore witnessing a steady decline in its water table due to unchecked urbanisation, excessive groundwater extraction, expanding concrete infrastructure and growing demand for water.

Punjab University water resources expert Muhammad Yasin said Lahore’s groundwater level is dropping by nearly one to one-and-a-half metres annually.

He explained that widespread construction has reduced the city’s natural ability to absorb rainwater, forcing most monsoon runoff into drainage networks rather than allowing it to recharge underground aquifers.

He stated that technologies such as recharge wells, filtration pits, bioswales and infiltration systems could help restore groundwater while also reducing urban flooding during heavy rains.

Punjab University and WWF-Pakistan have jointly established a rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge project that channels rooftop and surface runoff through filtration systems before injecting the treated water back into underground aquifers, demonstrating a practical model for water conservation.

RUDA Environment Director Abid Latif Sandhu warned that relentless pumping is exhausting shallow aquifers and pushing dependence towards deep fossil water reserves that accumulated over thousands, and in some cases millions, of years.

He cautioned that these ancient reserves cannot be naturally replenished within a human lifetime, as cited by The Express Tribune.

Sandhu also raised concerns over groundwater contamination from untreated industrial waste, municipal sewage, agricultural chemicals and toxic heavy metals, warning that polluted water is increasingly replacing clean freshwater resources.

He urged authorities to make rainwater harvesting mandatory in all new housing developments, establish community recharge wells across urban areas, regulate extraction from deep aquifers and introduce a comprehensive national water management policy covering the entire water cycle, as reported by The Express Tribune. (ANI)

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