{"id":18079,"date":"2026-04-13T10:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T10:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/2026\/04\/13\/push-groundwater-legislation-pakistan\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T10:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T10:14:09","slug":"push-groundwater-legislation-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/2026\/04\/13\/push-groundwater-legislation-pakistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Push for groundwater legislation in Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Naseer Memon<\/strong>, senior advisor at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, told a packed session on water resources management that Pakistan must move quickly to introduce groundwater legislation to curb unchecked extraction, especially for commercial use.<\/p>\n<p>Memon warned that the Indus Basin aquifer is the second most over-stressed underground water reserve globally and requires immediate policy action. He highlighted that Pakistan&#8217;s urban population rose from about 46 million in 1997 to roughly 94 million in 2023, intensifying demand pressures on both surface and underground supplies.<\/p>\n<p>He cited stark local examples: in Quetta the water table fell from around 50 metres in 2000 to more than 150 metres by 2023; Lahore&#8217;s groundwater is declining at an average rate of 2.61 feet a year; Rawalpindi has seen a drop of about 30 feet since 2013; and Karachi currently receives roughly 650 million gallons per day against an estimated demand exceeding 1,200 million gallons per day.<\/p>\n<p>Memon emphasised that over one-third of piped water, an estimated 35 to 40 percent, is lost to leakages and theft, underlining the need for stronger governance in distribution networks. He noted agriculture consumes over 90 percent of extracted groundwater, with more than 60 percent of Indus Basin irrigation requirements met by pumping. The number of agricultural tubewells in Punjab rose from 334,000 in 1994 to more than 1.2 million in 2024, collectively withdrawing over 51 million acre-feet of groundwater each year.<\/p>\n<p>The expert warned that over-extraction has pushed water tables below six metres in over half of irrigated areas, posing risks to crop production, salt intrusion and long-term land productivity. To address these trends he urged lawmakers to draft clear groundwater legislation that regulates commercial and large-scale withdrawals, introduces licensing and monitoring, and closes loopholes that permit uncontrolled pumping.<\/p>\n<p>Alongside legal measures he proposed practical interventions such as sponge-city designs to retain urban runoff, managed aquifer recharge, expanded rainwater storage, construction of flood channels for recharge, and use of wetlands and natural depressions to store floodwater for later use. Memon said combining policy reform with these recharge and conservation techniques would offer the best chance to stabilise groundwater levels.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Shafqat Munir, deputy executive director at SDPI, introduced Memon and underlined that groundwater depletion is a governance challenge as much as a natural resource issue. He called on federal and provincial authorities to prioritise groundwater legislation and coordinated implementation to secure water for future generations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Experts urge groundwater legislation to stop over-extraction and protect the Indus aquifer; policy reforms and recharge measures are proposed now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":18078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}