KARACHI: ‘In the context of global climate change, rapidly increasing population and urbanization across the developing world, water scarcity is being viewed as a yardstick against which these variables—potentially disastrous social, economic and environmental consequences—are being measured.’ This was stated by Hammad Naqi Khan, Director General World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan).

He also said that Pakistan is among the countries which could face severe food and water crisis due to increased demand for water resources by agriculture, and the industrial and domestic sectors. Big metropolis in Pakistan are already facing acute shortages of clean drinking water that has resulted in the over-extraction of groundwater, depleting the aquifer. He emphasized that water related issues are a monumental disaster in the offing which need to be addressed on a war footing to better prepare the nation for all eventualities.

Every year World Water Day is marked on 22 March and the theme for the current year is why wastes water which is about taking action to tackle the water crisis. It emphasizes the need to improve water quality, and treat and reuse wastewater. According to World Health Organization, there are over 663 million people living without a safe water supply close to home, spending countless hours queuing or trekking to distant sources, and coping with the health impacts of using contaminated water.

In a press statement issued on World Water Day 2017, WWF-Pakistan stated that as Pakistan is increasingly becoming a water scarce country, treatment of wastewater collected from industrial and municipal discharge has an extremely high economic, social and ecological significance. WWF-Pakistan believes there is a convincing business case for industries and businesses to treat their wastewater at source. Many progressive industries have improved their compliance, export and the overall value of their business through proper water conservation and waste water treatment. Before the country runs out of water, there is an urgent need to take responsibility of this indispensable resource in the spirit of true water stewards. It further stated that vast quantity of wastewater from industries, agriculture, cities and homes goes untreated and is not reused for purposeful activities. There is need to reduce, reuse and safely treat wastewater promote food security and health ecosystems in country.

Muhammad Moazzam Khan, Technical Adviser Marine Fisheries, WWF-Pakistan shared that there is an acute shortage of clean water in some metropolises of the country but the general public is unaware of the measures that can be taken to reduce generation of wastewater.

Practices of washing, bathing and even shaving in almost all households are not properly managed and in most cases a huge quantity of water is wasted. Even in chores like tooth brushing and shaving, the taps are allowed to run continually and more than 80% of the water that could be saved goes in drains. There is need to control such wastage and multinational companies that supply tooth paste and shaving cream or blade must incorporate saving water messages on their products.—PR