Strategic preparations for Pakistan: India has suspended the Indus Water Treaty (IWT), aiming to deprive Pakistan of its share of irrigation water.
Can it block the water? Technically speaking, not now.
At this point, it requires infrastructure to divert and dispose of the water, especially floodwater.
However, Pakistan should not view this threat as merely a challenge, but rather as a call to urgent action.
The water crisis in our country is a reality, regardless of India’s actions.
The provinces of Punjab and Sindh are already in conflict over the six-canal plan to divert water from the Indus River to the Cholistan Desert.
How long can we afford to let our economy hang in the balance of a water crisis, and allow unfriendly countries to exploit our seasonal and geographical vulnerabilities?
Let’s capitalize on this opportunity and mitigate the consequences of the threat if it happens.
Luckily, we have Mother Nature on our side.
It has blessed us with immense resources that only need to be exploited.
Below is an outline of a roadmap for water resilience, a concept crucial to our survival and prosperity.
First, we need to enhance our water storage capacity, which currently stands at a precarious 30 days, compared to India’s 220+ days.
The IWT had stipulated that Pakistan would construct reservoirs on its allotted rivers; however, we fell short of this commitment.
We should expedite the construction of the water storage dams and reservoirs, including the Diamer-Bhasha Dam and Mohmand Dam.
They would not only help store the regular river run-off water but also store monsoon floods to offset winter shortages.
Infrastructure overhaul: Natural underground water storage – aquifers: As a natural process, water at the surface of the ground, known as the Recharge Basin, seeps down into natural underground reservoirs called Aquifers.
These are water sponges—giant subsoil reservoirs.
However, the aquifers are being depleted at a rate faster than they can replenish.
Millions of gallons of rain are thrown into the sea, which can effectively be harnessed to replenish the depleted and empty aquifers.
Artificial Aquifer Replenishment methods help refill depleted aquifers.
The methods are based on indigenous technology and offer a feasible and economically viable solution, which can be executed in significantly reduced time.
Much of the rainwater either evaporates or flows away to sea.
We can trap it and channel it into the sponge, storing it for later use.
Where the natural seepage of water into the aquifers is insufficient, we can use artificial methods to pump surface water into the aquifers, replenishing the life-giving elixir.
Here is how:
Techniques for refilling the aquifers: By leveraging modern technology and implementing archaic methods, we can replenish our aquifers with the following methods:
Surface-based methods: Spreading basins: Excavate shallow basins in permeable soils, such as sandy loam, to allow rainwater and floodwater to collect and percolate into the ground.
Check dams: These are small, dam-like obstructions built across seasonal streams to slow runoff and enhance infiltration.
We can also build Infiltration trenches with check dams.
These are long, gravel-filled ditches along fields or roads that help water seep in.
The materials used are available off-hand, and inexpensive—stone, concrete, or gabions (wire cages filled with rocks).
It is practiced in our rural areas, albeit at a smaller scale.
Percolation tanks: These are constructed in areas with hard-rock geology (e.g., Balochistan) to store water temporarily for recharge.
Subsurface methods: These systems are constructed below the surface, as that is where the real action of water preservation occurs.
Recharge wells: These are constructed by drilling boreholes (10–50 m in depth) into aquifers and filling them with gravel or sand to filter water.
The rainwater is taken down through the subsurface into the thirsty aquifer.
Injection wells: This technology utilizes force-treated surface water pumped into confined aquifers.
It requires the construction of water treatment plants, which, in addition to generating clean water, also protect the environment from waste sludge.
Subsurface dams: Yes.
Like the check dams built above the surface, underground barriers can also be constructed to block groundwater flow and create storage.
Japan has developed a simple technology called the Fukuoka Method.
With it, they have successfully recharged their coastal aquifers.
Urban stormwater harvesting: Another common practice is redirecting rooftop rainwater via gutters into recharge pits or wells.
Islamabad channels stormwater from the Margalla Hills into the Rawal Lake aquifer.
Success stories in Pakistan: Pakistan receives sufficient rainfall to replenish its aquifers.
We can successfully implement the AAR methods in all the provinces of Pakistan.
Luckily, what is mentioned above is not new.
We have employed these methods with great success throughout Pakistan.E.g., in the Cholistan Desert, check dams and Kunds (underground tanks) have revitalized pastoral communities.
In Lahore, Model Town, a rooftop rainwater harvesting project recharged groundwater by 15%.
Check dams are practiced widely in fields, mainly for irrigation, which also helps water seep through.
We can retrofit canals to divert monsoon floods into spreading basins for enhancing alluvial aquifers.
Construct injection wells and Check Dams to recharge brackish aquifers with floodwater.
In many areas, Hybrid Systems can be installed by pairing Check Dams with Recharge Wells in clay-rich areas.
People in Balochistan are familiar with Karez—an indigenous method of groundwater extraction that has sustained arid regions in Balochistan for over 2,000 years.
It was widely applied in areas such as Pishin, Quetta, and Masung for centuries.
Many Karez systems have dried up and collapsed due to neglect and a lack of maintenance, but they can be revived with minimal effort.
India’s threats, even if enacted, can be effectively offset by adopting the above measures, and Pakistan can transform its vulnerability into resilience.
The Indus, a lifeline for millennia, need not become a weapon—it can instead flow as a testament to the adaptive, local, and indigenous measures.
This approach will also resolve the internal differences between provinces regarding water distribution.
The time for action is now: every drop saved and utilized today secures tomorrow’s harvest and prosperity.
Let’s make Pakistan green without relying on foreign treaties, expertise, and loans.
There is a great way.
All we need is the will.
The will to survive.
—The writer is a guest columnist, was a Manager in a multinational electrical firm and was the EPC Project Manager of an IPP. (mushtaq.jan@gmail.com)