President Dr Arif Alvi on Thursday said that water scarcity was a massive challenge for the country and emphasized that water preservation and conservation, was need of the hour ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News – 24th Jan, 2019 ) :President Dr Arif Alvi on Thursday said that water scarcity was a massive challenge for the country and emphasized that water preservation and conservation, was need of the hour.
He said this during a briefing by Hissar Foundation on Water issues at Aiwan-e-Sadr.
The President said that water was a matter of life and death for the future generation and underscored that a comprehensive and dynamic water policy would have to be developed to meet the future needs of the country.
He said that for this purpose a comprehensive data must be collected, related and analyzed in order to make right decisions.
The President underlined that modern research and technologies for the conservation of water must be developed.
He also stated that all universities and relevant departments must promote and provide basis for further research on this issue.
The President stressed that there was a dire need to enhance public motivation and awarenessthrough media to preserve water.
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Seen by satellite and on foot around the city, officials warn that what they call land subsidence poses a grave danger to a country where protests over water scarcity already have seen violence.
“Land subsidence is a destructive phenomenon,” said Siavash Arabi, a measurement expert at Iran’s cartography department.
Over-reliance on ground aquifers has seen increasingly salty water pumped from below ground.
When you pump water from under the ground surface, you cause some empty space to be formed in the soil,” Arabi told The Associated Press.
Iranian authorities say they have measured up to 22 centimeters (8.6 inches) of annual subsidence near the capital, while the normal range would be only as high as 3 centimeters (1.1 inches) per year.
Either way, the numbers are alarming to experts.
German scientists estimate that land under the airport is sinking by 5 centimeters (1.9 inches) a year.
Some 2 million people live in the area, he said.
Already, the drought and water crisis has fed into the sporadic unrest Iran has faced over the last year.
Iranian authorities have begun to crack down on illegal water wells.

The situation is such dire that water vendors have nothing to trade in since Export Processing Zone Authority (EPZA), their main source is no longer selling them the commodity.
Machakos county government through its water regulatory authority in the sub county, Mavoko Water and Sewerage Company (MAVWASCO), has attributed the situation to ballooning numbers of residents in the region.
He said EPZA water is supplied from Nairobi through Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company that has currently cut supply.
“Currently, Nairobi has its own water issues, they cannot supply Mavoko when their own residents do not have water.
They equally have water scarcity themselves, water vendors are in problem,” said Kilonzo.
Kilonzo spoke to the Star in Athi River on Tuesday.
He said Mlolongo and Syokimau residents are the mostly affected by the situation since they do not have an alternative source of water, they solemnly depend on the EPZA line from Ndakaini Dam that passes through Nairobi.
He said MAVWASCO must have its own water source since demand for the commodity is growing everywhere.
Kilonzo said there is already an ongoing Sh2.5 billion national government’s water project in Mavoko to resolve the situation.
We are improving on our storage facilities,” said Kilonzo.

Since Republic Day is round the corner, nation is gearing up for the celebrations.
However, some parts of the Uttar Pradesh are waiting for the day to arrive so that they can voice their grieves to the nation.
Following water scarcity, a group of 50 youths from Maho area in Hathras district has decided to auction themselves to mark a silent protest on Republic Day against concerning government authorities that have neglected the severe problem of water shortage in the locality.
The youths said that the money raised from the auction, to be held at Nagla Maya village, would be used to supply drinking water to all houses.
According to a report from a leading newspaper, several villages till date have no source of drinking water while many houses don’t have water connections.
Claiming that the water scarcity has affected over three lakh people, residents said that they had raised the issue before officials ranging from the district magistrate to President of India.
Also read: In Assam’s villages, a low-cost, DIY technology is battling contaminated water (Feature) With only disappointment received in return, people decided to launch a campaign under the banner of Yuva Jan Kalyan Samiti with the tagline ‘Sabhi Kharidar Amantrit Hain’ (All Buyers Are Invited) stating that they would auction themselves on January 26 to raise funds for providing safe drinking water to all residents of the locality.
They also said that they would launch a hunger strike on the same day.
He added that he has not received any further communication from higher authorities on the issue.
Reportedly, Brijesh Pathak, the Chief medical officer refused to comment when asked about health issues caused by hard water in the district.

BENGALURU : Residents living in outlying areas of the city, including Whitefield, HSR layout, Sarjapura and others are dreading the upcoming summer as that means they will be shelling out a lot more to ensure a steady water supply to their homes.
With summer set to arrive in a few months, areas which are not served by the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board’s (BWSSB) Cauvery water supply project, may have to shell out up to `200-300 extra for each tanker of water as the suppliers themselves say that they will be hard put to find enough water to sell.
Residents of these areas narrate a tale of water scarcity year after year in the absence of an assured supply.
While the stage V of the Cauvery water supply project is underway, it will be completed only by 2023, leaving them to the mercy of water suppliers till then.
Prices could go up even more this year if private water suppliers are to be believed.
According to several suppliers that City Express spoke to, they themselves are forced to jump hoops to source water.
“If our borewell dries up, we have to travel to other areas to collect water, this will mean more charges for drivers as well as fuel.
Extra electricity charges are also needed to pull out water from depleted borewells.
We might charge `300 over the regular rate this summer,” said the owner of a water supply firm near Bommanahalli.
Also the water rates differ from area to area.

Is federalism really capable of bringing a paradigm shift in water resource management of Kathmandu Valley?
“The crisis is prevalent in the entire Kathmandu Valley, but it is the northeastern side that is bearing the brunt the most.” The researcher explains that the migration pattern of Kathmandu Valley is largely horizontal: human settlements are moving from the centre to the outskirts.
“But, the pattern of water flow is quite opposite; it flows from north to south,” he describes, “Hence, horizontal urbanisation results in increased water scarcity.” “Though it is not immediately possible to take a large number of people out of Kathmandu, our hope is that people will stop migrating to Kathmandu before the crisis turns deeper, due to the new federal structure,” Adhikari says, “We cannot decipher what happens after that if our hope fails.” ‘But not a magic wand’ Experts, however, are uncertain about the impact of federal setup on water resource management of the valley, given the poor and unscientific distribution of natural resources.
Doing so in other places will also take an equal amount of time.” Therefore, Paudel suspects the validity of the hypothesis that the introduction of federalism can immediately change the migration pattern and encourage people to live in cities other than Kathmandu.
“Federalism is the decentralisation of governing system,” he defines, “With the decentralisation of government, everything else is decentralised.” Erroneous execution But, Nepal’s problem, according to Sharma, is the ill implementation of the ideal system.
“In such systems, other systems are decentralised, but not the governing system.
“My wish was that all seven provincial capitals would be established outside already developed cities.
If we had done that, we could have planned the cities in a completely new way,” he laments the lost possibility, “It could have brought a big shift in the entire demographic pattern and infrastructure development works in the country.” Sharma says the foundation of bad practice lies in the constitution.
“The constitution has restricted the rights of provincial and local governments.
Hoping against hope Though frustrated with the current working style of provincial and federal political leadership and bureaucrats, Sharma says the correction is still possible if the stakeholders realise intrinsic values of federalism.

The “Day Zero” water crisis that threatened the city of Cape Town in South Africa last year was due to an expansion of stable conditions in the subtropics that pushed rainfall farther south, according to a meteorological analysis.
The researchers believe their study highlights the vulnerability of the Cape Town area – and other areas with dry, Mediterranean-type climates – to climate change.
“This has been particularly notable in the last few years, which correspond exactly to the warmest years ever observed at the global scale.” The South African government announced the risk of “Day Zero” in the latter half of 2017.
To avoid the crisis, citizens were limited to 50 litres of water per person per day.
One year later, Day Zero has not yet arrived.
“[There was] the real chance of Cape Town being the first large metropolitan area in the world to run out of water,” says Sousa.
“This immediately led us to raise some scientific questions and to rapidly analyse the event purely from a meteorological and climatological point of view.” Sousa and colleagues based at the University of Lisbon and the University of Cape Town examined daily meteorological data going back to 1979 in a bid to understand the large-scale atmospheric dynamics that led to particularly low rainfall in South Africa.
As a result, weather fronts have missed the city, particularly during the transition seasons of spring and autumn, leading to the prolonged severe drought.
In addition, the team reckons the fact that the government’s water restrictions allowed the city to avoid the worst scenario demonstrates how much of a factor rising water-demand was in the near-crisis.
“I am confident that lessons like the one learned with the Day Zero water crisis will result in more awareness and better water-resources management, in order to prevent upcoming meteorologically-driven episodes of water scarcity, which will undoubtedly occur again.” Sousa and colleagues reported the findings in Environmental Research Letters (ERL).

Water scarcity affects at least 11% of the European population and 17% of EU territory.
Since 1980 Europe has experienced more and more droughts, especially in the south.
With global warming and more frequent extreme weather conditions the European Union needs a specific policy to face water scarcity.
Today, the environment and health committee in the European Parliament backed the report drafted by S&D MEP Simona Bonafè that would establish harmonised criteria at EU level for the reuse of urban waste water.
It also calls for appropriate investment to properly manage water use and improve its quality.
“We must move towards a circular economy, also in the use and re-use of water.
The potential for reuse of water by 2025 is approximately 6.6 billion m3, compared to the current 1.1 billion m3 per year.
That would require investment of less than EUR700 million and would make it possible to reuse more than half of the current volume of water coming from EU waste water treatment plants theoretically available for irrigation, avoiding more than 5% of direct extraction from bodies of wastes and groundwater,” said Simona Bonafè.
“This regulation will be a useful tool but we must ensure clear roles and responsibilities of all actors involved and the correct implementation the main risk management activities.
In order to better exploit the potential for water reuse, we have given the possibility to member states to use reclaimed water, not only for agricultural irrigation, but also for other purposes such as industrial reuse or environmental and amenity-related purposes,” she added.

Drip irrigation could not only help in overcoming water scarcity but also increase produce from 20 to 100 percent FAISALABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News – 22nd Jan, 2019 ) :Drip irrigation could not only help in overcoming water scarcity but also increase produce from 20 to 100 percent.
A spokesman of the agriculture extension department told APP here on Tuesday that the country was facing severe shortage of water and is placed at 7th number in water scarcity in the world.
At the time of independence, there was 5600 cusecs water for every citizen in Pakistan which now reduced to 1000 cusecs per capita.
This availability will further decrease to 800 cusecs per head by 2025, he apprehended.
He said that government was providing 60 percent subsidy on construction of water ponds and 80 percent subsidy on installation of solar system for drip irrigation,adding that drip irrigation helps the salts to move deep into the soil and get easily absorbed by the roots of the plant.

Now, as in other areas of the world, population growth, economic development, rapid urbanization and industrialization are applying significant pressures on the water resources of Pakistan and it is becoming a country with water scarcity.
To address the water scarcity issue, an effective balance is required to be created between developing new resources and managing the demand.
The large rain-fed area of Pakistan, covering some million hectares remains largely under developed, although considerable investment has been made in mini-dams and other forms of water harvesting infrastructure.
Countries Irrigated area in million hectare Percentage cultivated area Irrigated area food production as percentage of total India (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); 50.1 35 60 China 49.8 47 70 (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
In addition, water logging and salinity are affecting about one-third of over 16 million hectares (ha) of irrigated lands that supply more than 90 percent of Pakistan’s total agriculture produce.
The quality of surface water and groundwater resources is deteriorating with pollution load caused by chemical intensification in agriculture, urbanization, and industrialization
Under this Act, the governments of each province will replace the existing administrative set up of PIDs by establishing Provincial Irrigation and Drainage Authorities (PIDAs), and under PIDAs creation of Area WaterBoards (AWBs) and Farmers’ Organizations (FOs).
8 Establishment of Provincial Irrigation and Drainage Authorities (PIDAs) Irrigation and Drainage Authorities have been established under the PIDA Act, 1997 in all the provinces for streamlining the irrigation and drainage system, commonly known as PIDA in Punjab, SIDA in Sindh, FIDA in NWFP and BIDA in Balochistan.
The Agriculture Department is represented in the AWB of all provinces except Punjab, like PIDA.
There is a government’s representative in all AWBs.