Daily Times

Pakistan is facing severe floods and famines due to lack of planning during the monsoon for the last many years. There is a dire need to formulate a comprehensive national policy on water as Pakistan is going to face acute shortage of water in the near future. Increasing population makes it imperative to save each drop of precipitation. As 80% rainfalls occurs during monsoon within 2-3 months the storage of rainwater is only way to address water and food security in the country.

The monsoon has set in and this thesis is particularly for the purpose to store every drop of water from household to pond and from pond to big dams. To accomplish this purpose Meteorology Department can help using its advanced forecasting system for quantity of rain expected with reference to time and location. Looking at the climate and topography of the country, most of the rains occur in mountains followed by Potohar and then the plain areas. The range of rainfall lies between 200-1500 mm per year, and as mentioned above 80% of this rainfall occurs in short span of two months. The rain fall that occurs in pre-mountainous areas can be stored in small ponds. It has been estimated using GIS remote sensing technology that there is potential of over 13000 ponds just in four districts of Potohar. It is import to share that storing water in small ponds can change the traditional agriculture of Potohar to production of fruits and vegetables, very much suits to the climate of the area. The above referred ponds will not only address converting our conventional agriculture in Potohar to the orchards and high value cash crops but also would address water recharge.

The most important concern about water is our gracious attitude of water use developed being inhabitants of five rivers land, now needs to be changed towards responsiveness and zero runoff. The situation is further worsened as contaminated and brackish waters are also left unattended which is increasing day-by-day and leading groundwater pollution. As a nation we have to change our attitude on both the directions and come up with solutions to overcome the water scarcity. The solution lies in adoption of best practices being carried on in advanced countries. Now, Alhamdulillah we do have our own scientists and researchers who have successfully customized and developed successful models. It is only a matter of patronage and encouragement of these models, which if adopted at large can result in paradigm shift in our livelihood and will bring national prosperity to this country.

We at Arid Agriculture University developed models for urban and agricultural rainwater harvesting systems. In first stage a rainwater harvesting pond was developed at university in order to store the rain water from roof tops, roads and streets. In addition to groundwater recharge for existing tube wells in the university and nearby pumping units this water is used to irrigate plants, meadows and crop experimentation at university. In the second stage five ponds have been built on the area of 2200 Kanal of land at University Research Farms in light of Rain Water Harvesting Model with collaboration of Higher Education Commission. Annually an 80 Acre feet of water is stored here. The ponds are meeting the needs of gardens and vegetables at University Research Farms. The farm has become a role model for whole Potohar region.

Before this, Agency for Barani Area Development (ABAD) has only tried to store rain water in the sloppy and low lying areas by building mini dams. It is very difficult to take downward water to the upward areas, and thus command area of Potohar could not be developed for agriculture a heaven of i.e. fruits, flowers and vegetables by using Geo Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing Systems university has prepared a model for whole Potohar region to store rainwater by building ponds and to fulfill agricultural needs in effective way. Besides, introducing High Efficiency Irrigation System i.e. drip irrigation system and sprinkler, university took initiatives to increase yield per unit Acer by 21st century agriculture (Hydroponic Agriculture) a big blessing to small land holder’s poor farmers. As already mentioned GIS and Remote sensing surveys reveal that as many as 13000 ponds can be built in Potohar by implementation of this project as a result we can not only save our land from the devastations of flood but also enhance the quality and quantity of underground water besides improving agricultural needs. We believe collective efforts for rainwater harvesting even in the irrigated areas by the individual farmers at their farms will bring a revolution in the livelihood in this country along with a solution to the groundwater recharge for future use. Let me conclude that we as a nation have to move for zero runoff at every level to minimize the flood devastations in terms of precious lives, lands and infrastructure and answer to our increasing water shortage.

The writer is the vice-chancellor of PMAS-Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi

Published in Daily Times, July 10^th , 2017.