Importance of Water Resources

 Importance of Water Resources 

Water is a great endowment and blessing of God to man. Water is primary and basic need of human body. It is a well documented fact that the Earth’s surface is composed of 29 percent land and 71 percent water. Water is the earth’s most distinctive constituent, and is the primary ingredient for support of all organic life.It is among the most essential requisites that nature provides to sustain life of plants, animals and humans. The use of water is numerous and life without water is impossible.

A constant supply of clean and wholesome water is most essential for all citizens of the country. However, shortage of water is brought with disastrous results for the country. It constitutes a serious resource problem.

Pakistan is a country facing shortage of water due to sedimentation of reservoirs and drought. Seepage has also caused a loss of 65 million acre feet (MAF) of water. Unfortunately, climatic changes, rapidly increasing population, deplete on line storage, and large escapes of uncontrolled flood flows into sea cause shortage. To cope with this situation of water shortage, storage capacity has to be raised to create more water resources.

Moreover almost all the rivers which flow into Pakistan have their origin in India who controls the drainage channels of these rivers according to its own requirement. Pakistan’s water problems therefore, have been redoubled due to apathy on the part of governmental authorities and the disadvantage geographical location of our rivers.

Now, the population expansion of the country is flourishing at a rate of 8 births per minute, 480 births per hour, 11,520 per day, 4,204,800 per year and so on. In this way the per capital availability of water has been constantly decreasing for the last fifty years. According to the worldwide recognized water insufficiency indicators, the present level of water shortage in Pakistan hamper the growth and well being of its people, and puts severe constraints on human life. If this situation continues indefinitely, it is sure to put the future of Pakistan in jeopardy. It is tragic that the downward trend is continuing and both Tarbela and Mangla Dams have lost 25% and 20% storage capacity because of siltation.

Water scarcity may be the most under estimated issue facing the world today. Signs of water scarcity have become evident. Some of the more extensive indicators are the rivers running dry, wells going dry, lake disappearing and the subsoil water table are gradually decreasing day by day in many regions of the world. In Lahore, for example two decades back high quality water was available 300 to 400 feet down but now it has gone to more than 700 feet down.