[00:00:00] Bridget Scanlon: Welcome to the Water Resources Podcast. I am Bridget Scanlon. In this podcast, we discuss water challenges with leading experts, including topics on extreme climate events over exploitation and potential solutions towards more sustainable management.
I would like to welcome Azeem Shah to the podcast. Azeem is an international researcher in water governance institutions at the International Water Management Institute, IWMI, based in Lahore in Pakistan. His research covers many different topics, water governance and water security at national and transboundary levels, climate smart agricultural interventions to increase water productivity and food security, automation systems for flow measurement, and also solar based irrigation systems for agricultural resilience. Thank you so much, Azeem for joining me. Of course, agriculture is the elephant in the room in terms of water use, so it's great that you are working in this space and so many different topics. It was nice to meet you last year in California, the peer-to-peer international convergence research networks on transboundary water security.
So great to have you on the podcast.
[00:01:22] Azeem Shah: Many thanks, Dr. Bridget. Pleasure to meet you last year in California and looking forward to this discussion.
[00:01:29] Bridget Scanlon: So, I think it would be great Azeem if you could give the listeners some background on Pakistan because we haven't previously spoken about it. And it would be nice to give them some ideas of the water issues and related topics.
[00:01:44] Azeem Shah: Sure. So, Pakistan is the fifth largest populated country in the world currently. Total area is around 881,913 square kilometers. You can just imagine the size of Pakistan by just combining the size of France and UK together. So that's the size of the country. Geopolitically, it's just very, sort of, important and significant because it sits at the crossroads of the central Asian states, south Asian states, and the Middle Eastern states. So it gives a lot of importance particularly for the Western powers when it comes to geopolitical affairs in these regions.
The population of Pakistan is more than 240 million currently. And, the interesting thing about that population is more than 60% of the population is under the age of 30 years. So, a lot of youth population. Which is largest potential we think in terms of the human resource, but also a lot of people do go to the Western countries to earn livelihoods as well. And also in the Middle East, the distinct four seasons in terms of the weather or climate is also something very unique.
Here we have winter season, then a spring, a summer, and autumn season. And that's quite synonymous across the country. So the demographic changes, we have highest peaks in the world. So five of the largest, or the tallest 8,000 meter plus mountains are in Pakistan. So, I mean, people who would be watching this podcast, we have this Himalayan, Hndus Kush and Kaakoramranges of mountains.
So a lot of diversity in that census where also the third pole, which is obviously these three ranges, the Hindu Kush - Karakoram – Himalayan system is located in Pakistan. Or largely in this region, which also includes the, sort of Nepal and India and China.
Similarly, we have the largest river system, which is called the Indus Basin system of irrigation. And it's basically largest contiguous irrigation system across the world. So you'll read a lot of literature that is written on this largest irrigation system, primarily developed during the colonial time. So British rule this subcontinent before 1947, when Pakistan gained independence. So, during that time, particularly this whole irrigation system, a set of headwork canals and distributors were built.
So in terms of the size of the system, if we talk about the canal system is around 58,500 kilometer long. And, then we have around 1.6 million field channels emanating out of that system. At the higher level from the rivers when we have these barrages or we call these headworks, there are around 19 of those. And then there are also, something very unique, and we'll talk probably later in the podcast that once Pakistan and India got separated after independence, there was a treaty on water sharing that was signed between India and Pakistan in 1960.
And because of that treaty, certain rivers were provided to the Pakistan, certain to India. So Western Rivers came to Pakistan side. The Eastern came to the Indian side. So there was some linked canal also put as part of the replacement works, mainly funded by a consortium of donors, spearheaded by World Bank. And those link canals basically transfer water from the Western River towards the Eastern River. So we have 12 of those inter-river linked canals as well in our system. And then there are some major canals and then there are some minor canals. So that's the sort of size of the system we live with.
The challenges we have in terms of water or agriculture is the growing population, because the per capita water availability has been quite consistent, I would say, from the start up till now. But because of the huge population growth, the per capita water availability is pretty low. It's considered the waters as country.
Similarly, a lot of sedimentation related issues because we don't have many reservoirs. We only have two large reservoirs in the country. And then, you can imagine how much water these can store and then obviously the sedimentation a big challenge. Once these are sedimented, we will have to have some replacement, as well.
And there's some work also going on in the country. I can talk about that as well. Then we have some certain sort of settlement, or treaty with India, but we do not have any treaty with Afghanistan, and that's also one of the largest neighbors. So we have primarily four neighbors. I forgot to mention that in the intro.
We have a large border, the largest border with India, then the second largest with Afghanistan. Then we have China, and then we have Iran. So these are the four countries with whom we share our borders. So with India, there's obviously some treaty on the water, but with the Afghanistan we share around nine rivers.
And a lot of people this continent or subcontinent do not know, how many rivers do we share with Afghanistan. So some are very small, but there are three large rivers that we share with Afghanistan, and we do not have any sort of water sharing engagement with those rivers. So I published a book a year before last year on these three rivers, and we can talk about that also later in our discussion.
So I'll stop here. This is just to give you a brief flavor of what we are talking about.
[00:07:35] Bridget Scanlon: No, that's wonderful. Azeem, I really appreciate that. And, so I guess, some of the big issues are the huge populationgrowth. I think maybe it was like 40 million in the seventies or whatever. Now it's more than 240 million. So, huge population growth in a young population.
And then the topography in the country, I'm sure a lot of climbers go to Pakistan to climb those peaks. So, very high topography in the northern region, and then you come down to the plains and then the Indus, of course is the major river, I guess in the region. And so you mentioned a lot of sediment transport from the upland areas to the plains. And when you look at a map of groundwater basins globally, you don't see Pakistan or the Indus aquifers shown there, but there's a huge groundwater system associated with the Indus basin and those alluvial sediments. And I know you'll describe that shortly. So very interesting, from climate, topography, water perspective.
And, you mentioned reservoirs, only a few reservoirs, and then you have, but about 30% of your energy then comes from hydroelectricity, I think. And then maybe over 60% from fossil fuels. So hydroelectricity is also an important aspect. And then sharing these rivers with the neighboring countries, guess about 40% of the Indus is in India and about almost 50% in Pakistan. and then the Indus plain alluvial aquifers are pretty huge. So, you were starting to describe the Indus Basin irrigation system, I-B-I-S, I guess with the treaty created in 1960.
And the major tributaries going and the East going to India and the West going to Pakistan. Maybe you can describe a little bit. My understanding, of course, very poor, but that originally with the British system, with so much emphasis on surface water irrigation and canals, that there was water logging and salinization issues, and then they started to develop a groundwater.
Maybe you can describe that transition, and how groundwater became more and more important.
[00:09:53] Azeem Shah: Okay. So again, a bit of a history about this question. The average sort of flow of the Indus that we receive every year is around 207 billion cubic meters. Just to contextualize it is smaller than the Mississippi, but, it's bigger than Colorado, right? But, the water sharing type disputes are even sort of, quite common, what you can see in Colorado, and we can see in the Indus as well. So, to contextualize that the treaty that was signed in 1960 with India, and that was brokered by World Bank. And it took a lot of more than a decade or so of discussions between the experts. And it was, again, to emphasize here, it was a discussion between the technical people.
So the technical people were talking on both sides. And they wanted to have some sort of arrangement whereby the rights of the water are secure for both countries. So somehow they arrived on division of the resource formula. And this is something that I've extensively talked about and written about as well, that dividing the resource is an approach which engineers can obviously do well.
But for the political scientists we are more in favor of sharing the benefits. And that's what I've advocated in the book on the Afghanistan-Pakistan shared waters, whereby I've endorsed that we have to come up to a solution whereby we share the benefits of the water that we have between the two countries.
It is questionable whether that water availability would last, factoring in the issues of climate change. So what happened in 1960 was that the eastern rivers and these include the Ravi, Chenab, and Sutlej, these are the three rivers that were given to India with all the rights of the waters in those rivers, the western rivers that include, Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab, these were given to Pakistan. But India was given rights of constructing runoff, the river, type reservoir, particularly in the Kashmir part, and also using it for some agricultural purposes.
So since then after this division, as I mentioned, some replacement works were carried out. So a couple of dams were built in Pakistan to store water off the western rivers, along with these to divert water from the western rivers towards the eastern rivers, and then some sort of infrastructure.
Groundwater was totally absent in the discussions at that time. So, because of the construction of these linked canals and dams and the replacement works, there was an issue of water logging and also salinity in certain areas. In order to sort of resolve that issue, the government of Pakistan started a large program called SCARP, Salinity Control and Reclamation Project, it's basically called. And they installed public tube wells in areas which were waterlogged because of these sort of canal infrastructure, and surface water availability and all that sort of stuff. So these were introduced during that time. It is, say, seventies and eighties, I'm talking about.
So, the tube well was very new, in this area at that time. So somehow this project ran successfully and these tube wells basically pumped a lot of water out of the aquifer. So they addressed the issue of this water longing as well. But later on, once the irrigated area expanded, so these tube wells, some which were sort of initially installed to address the issue of water logging, were then used for irrigation purposes.
And then people also started out adopting these tube wells. This is a cheaper technology and a lot of influx of these, diesel pumps were coming from China. So in 1980s onwards, it really sort of gained momentum. A lot of momentum. And from then up till now we have around 1.5 million tube wells across the country and primarily in Punjab.
It is the largest province in terms of the population and the plain area where a lot of agriculture is happening. So this tube wells started with these diesel pumps. Then, the electric tube wells came in and then, now it has been overtaken by the solar tube wells. We don't have the exact point of the solar tube wells up till now out of this 1.5 million, I would imagine we are sort of having a very sort of exponential increase in the solar tube wells.
So, sooner I can bet, these would replace all the existing diesel or electric tube wells. So this is the kind of trajectory that we have seen in terms of the contribution, again because the canal water availability was not sort of available for all the population, so a lot of people totally dependent on the groundwater and where the canal water was available. The water allowance was set in a manner that was insufficient to grow crops. So people supplemented using the conjunctive water from groundwater and installing wells. So the cropping intensity is more than 150% at the moment.
And, groundwater contribution has exceeded 60% of the total water contribution. It's not even 50, it was 50, I would say 10 years ago, but now it's more than 60% in the overall sort of irrigation. So it's a huge water, which poses, again, significant threats because it is not sustainable.
The overall water draft is negative, so we are extracting more water as compared to the water that is being replenished. So this is resulting also in terms of the ground water table decline. So another issue, in case of let's say long dry spells, we will obviously be relying more on groundwater and which we are mining like anything.
So that's another big challenge that we are confronting with these days.
[00:16:06] Bridget Scanlon: And Azeem, that trajectory that you described, going from predominantly surface water irrigation canal systems that the British developed. And then you had the problem with salinization and to address that problem, then you installed some groundwater wells to reduce that issue.
But then we went over the top, and then over abstracting groundwater. And of course, that has benefited from cheap tube wells. The ubiquity of water, I mean, I guess as you mentioned your surface water contribution is regulated and capped. But, then people can install a tube well anywhere and then abstract groundwater. And have more ready access to water resources than they might have with the regulated surface water system. And I think, I don’t know if you interact with the British Geological Survey or David John McAllister, they describe a similar trajectory in Northwest India and include Punjab region of Pakistan, and their analysis showing the transition from predominantly surface water to increasing groundwater and tube wells and stuff.
So I think if you could get a balance between those and conjunctively manage surface water and groundwater, you could maybe move towards more sustainable management. Do you think that is possible?
[00:17:30] Azeem Shah: So this renewed thinking about that. How to regulate groundwater. It is difficult because there has been an act from the British era, which is called the Easement Act, and that allowed anybody to install any tube well in an area which they own. Right. So, recently what has happened in Punjab, in Halle Punjab province, followed by now Sindh then Balochistan, they have passed their water acts. And the idea of those water acts, and these have come after the passage of the national water policy.
So once Pakistan gained independence, it took around 50 plus years to draft the national water policy of the country. So it was passed in 2018. So after 2018, the provinces were tasked to regulate the groundwater or make efficient use of their water resources. So as a result, they have passed their water acts, and under those acts, they have constituted commissions and authorities to, let's say, draft the rules how to use surface water, let's say for, not only for agriculture, but other sectors as well.
Similarly, groundwater and certain licensing programs are now being initiated. So the whole idea is to, let's say, as per the water availability and zoning, where we have critical levels. And the water table is declining rapidly, not to allow more tube wells in those areas. So this has already started and they are trying to make a balance, and try to let's say, regulate as much as possible the use of groundwater and same as the thinking for you in fact, promoting solar as well. That, solar should only be promoted in those zones and areas, where we have ample, supply of, subsurface water. And, where there is critical aquifers, we should try not to encourage farmers to install solar.
But the thing is that there are certain government programs on solar and then there are obviously the private market. The majority, more than 90% of the solar that has been installed in the country are from the private sector. Farmers from their own pockets or from loans or getting money from their friends. They have installed the solar pumps. They know that it's a one-time investment, but obviously sort of benefits are for the longer period. So that's why they are moving towards that. The other reason that why government schemes have not really kicked off are because they try to introduce high efficiency irrigation systems along with the solar pumps, and that has a contradiction with the cropping pattern.
The cropping pattern we predominantly have, particularly in Punjab, is the rice cotton in the summer season, which is called Kharif. And, wheat in winter season. And along with rice, cotton, some of the farmers of also are for sugar cane and maize. So all of these crops they think are not suitable to be grown with the drip irrigation system or the spring irrigation system.
They are pretty much used to the flood irrigation system, which is what they have been doing for a long time, which is highly inefficient, which has a lot of these losses as well. But that is what they have been doing for centuries. So they do not want to change that. The problem is that once the government is promoting the solar based systems with the drip irrigation system, they don't feel it appropriate for the cropping pattern that they are having. So that's why these schemes have not been very successful. The pumps that the farmer installs from their own pocket they're not forced to, let's say, install any irrigation system. So that's where they are installing, left, right, and center. So, just to summarize, the thing is that, there is work going on in all the four provinces in terms of regulating groundwater, trying to create sort of water resources type departments or at least divisions.
And the prime responsibility is to see how we can efficiently use surface water along with groundwater, and also trying to see whether we can make beneficial use of surface water from the other sectors that include industry, recreation, or the potable water supply.
[00:21:45] Bridget Scanlon: Right. So, and interesting issues. So with the increased groundwater use, I think I've read that groundwater levels have been declining up to a meter a year in some of the major urban areas. And so you're seeing a lot of groundwater decline. I don't know, are you seeing much subsidence associated with that? And also another aspect, Azeem, when we spoke previously I really liked the IWMI report, International Water Management Institute report on solar irrigation, because that's such a huge topic for many of these regions, not just Pakistan, India, Africa, and all of these regions, where they're trying to move away from diesel pumps and electric pumps and move towards renewable energy to source irrigation.
But then there's a big concern that with what they consider free energy, then once you've paid the capital costs of the solar systems, that they would increase or over exploit groundwater even more. Could you describe a little bit about the project that you did in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, and how you compared solar systems among those different countries? I thought it was fascinating.
[00:22:58] Azeem Shah: Right. Solar, it's very interesting that it is taking over the conventional groundwater pumps that we had in this whole subcontinent. India was the earliest that embraced the solar technology. And then obviously, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal.
So the project that you mentioned, it was IWMI led project in the four countries. And I basically, was leading the Pakistan part. So, we looked at different sort of models which are sort of in different countries. And the interesting thing is that grid connected solar, something which has a huge potential in the future not only because we have vast land available in case of india and Pakistan in areas where there is the quality of groundwater is not very good. And we do not have access to surface water. So, this gives another potential sort of alternative source of income whereby farmers can install solar and they can, sort of, sell their electricity to the grid. So solar as a remunerative crop, that was idea that was suggested by my colleagues in India and that has been sort of experienced.
And it's been successful also, because in India they are quite a few areas where they have these grid connected solar pumps. Now grid connected solar pumps have also different models. One is the net metering that you know, the number of units that you basically consume and the number of units you sell back to the grid. You take a balance, whether you consume more, you'll have to pay, and if you have exported more, you'll have a credit for those units. That model, as per our research during the project, is something that farmers do not like. And they say that even if they get credit of certain units, what would they do with that credit?
Because typically their farms are located in far away areas, and their houses are even not close to the farms. So what to do those with the credits then we discussed in detail with different policy makers and we said that, there should be some feed in tariff type policy, FIT and that is that, the number of units you accumulate, the electricity sort of buying company that provides you against those units, a certain tariff and that you get in terms of cash, or something that is deposited to your account. So that is where there's a lot of interest from the farmers. There is a certain threshold level. And then we also determine the threshold level at which tariff it would basically encourage farmers to sell their electricity back to the grid, compared to running their pump and extracting more water.
And there's a clear behavioral preference that we saw that a higher rate, a certain threshold level. And in Pakistan case, we determined that around 20 rupees per unit. So once we cost that rate, the farmers were inclined to even sort of conserve groundwater and sell more electricity because they thought they would earn more money.
So these are, again, very interesting sort of models or techniques through which you can regulate groundwater. You provide incentives for the farmers to sell electricity because eventually the majority of these tube wells are going to be on solar. Similarly, in case of India, we have seen, there have been very successful schemes, which they call solar cooperatives, whereby individual farmers are not installing tube wells. So they basically join in, let's say, a group of let's say 12 to 15 farmers, or 20 farmers. They put in certain resource and then the government also provides subsidy. They install a larger tube well and that is used to irrigate their lands. And then they have certain, these agreements, with the government that take in terms of the extra units sold back to the grid.
They would get a certain amount in their pockets. So this is then again, a very sort of interesting model that is going on in India, and quite successful as well in Pakistan. Unfortunately, we haven't seen these grid connected solar pumps majority, or 99.9% pumps are basically individual solar pumps. They're not connected to the grid. So something to do in the future in order to regulate water and get benefit of excess electricity. We also installed instruments on the actual tube wells as to see what are the operating hours of those pumps. and we did a very interesting study just to sort of bust that myth that solar would lead to groundwater table decline.
So that's, again, very sort of common understanding around the policy makers. Solar will lead to groundwater depletion. It is not true. What we saw was, based on our sample of around 600 plus, farmers or tube wells, out of which half were basically solar and half were either diesel or electric.
So the data that we gathered, we actually sort of gathered the information on the operating hours of those tube wells against different crops, against different seasons in summer as well as in winter. And similarly, we took a lot of the common sort of information. The cropping pattern we investigated somewhere or even growing vegetables. We investigate that as well. Orchards for instance. So all of those data we gathered and then we saw how much water the solar versus the non-solar farmers where withdrawing from that, across different seasons. I believe only in one instance, whereby we saw solar were driving more water.
In majority of the other cases it came out the non-solar pumps were withdrawing more water, because it is directly proportional to the installed capacity of the pump. So the installed capacity, or the horse power (HP) of the pumps, which are diesel operated or electric operated, are far more as compared to the solar pumps because it becomes extremely expensive as you increase the size of the solar pump.
And also because you have to then increase the number of solar panels and land, that they have to sort of forego. It has also a a huge cost. So, it's just not simply that solar would lead to groundwater depletion. It all depends on the number of hours it's being operated and the size of the pump that is installed.
But commonly what we have seen in case of Pakistan, in case of Punjab, we haven't seen strong evidence that solar would lead to groundwater depletion. The problem is where there is no mechanism to check the farmers who are converted to solar. They're also having their sort of backup electric or diesel pumps installed. So if they are running, let's say electric or diesel pump in the night and solar during the day, obviously they're extracting more water. So there has to be some regulation in terms of not allowing the farmers who take any subsidy from the government to use their previous non-water pumps. So that is another way of trying to regulate, or, put a sort of stop to over abstraction of the groundwater.
[00:30:03] Bridget Scanlon: Right, so, so that's extremely interesting. And very insightful and counterintuitive based on our myths about solar increasing groundwater over exploitation. You mentioned to address that issue, also, the World Bank requires high efficiency irrigation systems to be used with the solar pump.
So that's another way to try to reduce over exploitation. When you describe the irrigation systems and that the crops are more suited to flood or furrow irrigation, like rice and other crops. And now they're not maybe as suited to the high efficiency irrigation, which we may be more sprinkler drip systems.
It just brings to mind to me what we hear about in California where they are doing a flood managed aquifer recharge, or agriculture managed aquifer recharge. So they're flooding the fields during the winter to promote a recharge of the groundwater. So I understand that the flood systems are not as efficient as sprinkler drip systems, but maybe they would recharge the aquifer and help with that.
So maybe some sort of combination there. Or are you considering flood managed aquifer recharge? Or considering that the leakage is not a true loss because a lot of it goes into the aquifer. So what are your thoughts about that?
[00:31:31] Azeem Shah: Yeah. There's a strong group of sizeable engineers who believe that this 40% efficiency often quoted in literature about the education system, that 60% of the water is lost till it reached the farm from the source from the river, or from the barrage, let's say. So this 60% which is considered lost, is not lost.
Basically, it's it's something that is useful for our aquifer. For the recharge of the aquifer. And that is true. That's why there have been sort of programs on the lining of the canals, and sometimes they have been welcome, sometimes they have been opposed. The opposition was primarily that you line the canals, the recharge would decrease.
And obviously that would result into groundwater table decline. So that is already happening. The problem we have is the winter, as you mentioned, case of California, that is something that they do, that pond the fields with water, and let replenish and use it later.
In terms here also in the areas where we don't have the canal irrigated infrastructure available. This is, what we call spate irrigation. This is the technique which is used. That they receive water from the hills or these flash floods, and they basically disperse that onto the fields, let it seep down.
And then they use it to generate one crop a year from those fields. Wherever we have this irrigated infrastructure available, there is already this replenishment of the groundwater going on, from the canals. But the problem is, the cultivated area, people are trying not to leave any land fallow. And they are trying to get, let's say around three crops a year.
So that pressure is basically resulting in more use of whatever surface water is available and whatever groundwater is available. So, this is something again, not sustainable and there's no sort of regulatory body, or sort of policy in order to, let's say, ask farmers not to grow these crops in particular area, or not to, let's say, get, more than two crops per year.
So that obviously has to be from the top, or from the government to make sure that we have to make efficient use of our surface and groundwater. What you mentioned in terms of the World Bank sort of funded project for the agriculture in Pakistan, I think it is not something that World Bank imposed that you have to have this, high efficiency irrigation system.
I mean, they did certain evaluations and we were also involved in one of those evaluations. There was more coming from the government of the Punjab, agriculture department. They wanted to have this high efficiency irrigation system coupled because they said that this is the only way we can make efficient use of groundwater.
But, the success of that system, what at least I have seen in the areas that I have worked, is only with high value crops or orchards. These are the sort of two main successful interventions that farmers have done with those high efficiency irrigation systems, that the traditional cropping pattern they have not changed their behavior.
I mean, although I would not say that wheat, or let's say cotton or let's say rice cannot be grown with the high efficiency irrigation systems. These can be, I mean, there's a Pakistan agriculture research. They carry out all of these trials, and they show that, these work. But it's a behavioral change. It's a societal sort of change that we have to bring in that less water can also generate decent crops. But that mentality, it'll take some time. And till that time, we obviously have to, let's say, put a lot of effort in terms of convincing the farmers. And then I think, a bit of role is from the declining groundwater table.
So I mentioned earlier that the groundwater table is declining and when farmers see or experience it from their own eyes, that we used to have, let's say, groundwater at 30 feet depth or 40 feet depth. Now, at the same place we have water at the 80 feet depth. So this is really sort of, triggering to think about what is going to happen let's say in the next 5 years or next 10 years.
So that is something, now being a realization in many quarters. And, that is the reason that they are trying to conserve water or make efficient use of water, as far as possible. One final point I want to add here is, the total use of the surface water available in the country towards agriculture, it's more than 90%, some say more than 95%, where between 90 to 95%.
The issue is that, this is not again, sustainable. The contribution from the agriculture, towards the GDP used to be more than 25% a few years ago. Now it is around 18%, towards agriculture to the GDP and, it is further declining. A lot of it is to do with urbanization. A lot of farmers have sold their property.
They moved towards the urban areas for the better livelihood opportunities. This, allocation of water towards agriculture, nobody has really thought about it. That this is not sustainable. We have to move water out of the agriculture, let's say, towards the industry, towards the potable water supply to the cities and other purposes as well.
And, that is a serious debate that has to happen within the country in order to make more meaningful use of the surface water supply. The groundwater is something the complete source of potable water option in all metropolitan cities. A hundred percent water is pumped, supplied towards the households which is, again, not sustainable.
I mean, I remember when I started working at IWMI at our office, we did the observation well, and the water at that time was available at 60 to 70 feet. I remember there was a recharge well that we constructed last year at the same place. And water table is now around 90 feet to a hundred feet.
So in the span of, let's say 10 years or so, 30 feet decline is a very high decline.
[00:37:48] Bridget Scanlon: Right, right. So, I mean, I guess you are also trying to develop solutions to these problems. And considering farmers' behaviors and everything is really important because they control so much. If they could sell their solar energy to the grid there would be another source of revenue as you described, and that might help them reduce water use, and irrigation and crop production.
You mentioned three crops a year. Maybe they could go down to two if they had another revenue source from selling their solar energy. So, so that would be a good thing. And, with solar pumps then, and the groundwater levels declining, I guess it gets more difficult then to use solar energy when you have deeper water tables when you're trying to pump from deeper systems. So, that's another aspect. So some of these things may be sort of self-regulating. I mean, if the farmers are seeing the declining groundwater levels and then that feeds back to increases energy costs to pump and stuff. So maybe that might help them come up with more efficient systems or conserve more.
So you also involved a lot Azeem, with the automated flow measurements and stuff. I've read some of your papers on that aspect. And do you think people are more aware of the quantities of water that they're diverting? You mentioned 90 to 95% of surface water diverted for irrigation, and that's of course not sustainable.
And then so much groundwater being used. Even though they estimate, I think about 500 cubic kilometers of groundwater available in the aquifers linked to the Indus River, that's about similar to 500 million acre feet in the US. So that's a huge resource. But, how do you think the monitoring system is helping? And if people understand the volumes that are being used, would that help address behavior issues and irrigation systems?
[00:39:53] Azeem Shah: So I recall this from your question now, from the behavioral aspect of information. So I published a paper on this. And, that was the very first, large project whereby we installed telemetry systems at each outlet at the outlet level as well. So we started with installing this telemetry system, or sensors at the canal head level to see how much water is coming into the canal.
But just to further enhance our knowledge, we install that system on each and every outlet. So the interesting part was farmers had very strong beliefs that the people sitting at the top or head of the canal, they extract more water than the people sitting at the center, had less water than the sitting people sitting at the tail end of the canal.
They received the lowest amount of water. And this is a syndrome we often say head middle tail inequity in the system. And there's a lot of literature also if you would read particularly from the subcontinent. So you would see this term head middle tail inequity. So, we basically busted this term again through our instrumentation that this head, middle tail inequity is something not true. There were farmers, we actually measure their discharges across a couple of seasons, sitting at the tail, drawing more water. It is all to do with the size of the outlet, right? And if they are able to manipulate the size of the outlet again, there are so many things that go on into the field.
They give extra money to the watchmen and they help them sort of manipulate with the size of the outlets. So the inequity by year across the canal, there wasn't, we couldn't find any head middle tail inequity. We actually found inequity across the canal, between different outlets, but that ws to do with a lot of other factors. The instrumentation obviously brought into picture a lot of those aspects that we never even thought about. We saw that once we shared information with the farmers about what they were receiving, and why they were receiving less because, for instance, their watercourse was silted or their sort of outlet was not properly managed, or the maintenance was not properly done. So the water was being lost. So the discourse or the discussion diverted from blaming other farmers stealing their water. They started, let's say, cleaning their watercourse properly, maintaining their watercourse properly. There were certain issues where we saw backwater effect, so their outlets were submerged. So in the submerged outlets, obviously the discharge that you expect, you are not receiving that because your outlet is submerged. So we identified those issues as well and told them that, not because that the water is not available, it is because your outlet is not properly sort of situated, so you have to collect. It shouldn't be submerged. So, that was only one canal where we had around 26 outlets. And we installed those instruments on all those outlets, and we found these issues, which were never, ever even thought about. So that changed the whole discourse of the discussions. And interestingly, over the whole 2, 3, 4 seasons which we monitored, we saw the canal on average was receiving more water as compared to its allowance.
So that was, again, a big sort of news or revelation for us, that even if you're receiving more water from your canal, still you are questioning the amount of water that you're receiving in your farm, or at your watercourse, just because of the other factors which you were not aware.
And that's because of the instrumentation that we have brought has made your lives easier. So, a lot of instrumentation of this thing at the outlet, at the canal level, we expanded in our later work.
Most recently, there was a USAID project, under which we instrumented the complete canal infrastructure in the northern province of Pakistan. And then the beauty is that we started with simple ultrasonic sensors. We initially used to measure the depth of flow, but later we improved our systems and we stored the velocity sensors as well. So we have the velocity sensors along with ultrasonic sensors to make sure that as accurate as possible, we can measure the discharge and the confidence of the people, particularly these water managers from the irrigation departments.
It has also increased over the course of these years. It's not only that international organizations like IWMI we have installed the instruments. But the government or these irrigation departments from the funding from let's say different banks, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, they have also installed similar telemetry systems.
And, there's currently also a big tender going on whereby they are sort of equipping 20 something locations, the key locations in the irrigation system with all telemetry system. These include the barrages as well, some of the barrages. So a lot of work triggered into follow-up investments, which I believe is a big success.
[00:44:52] Bridget Scanlon: So Azeem, it seemed like you were into busting myths a lot. And it's really nice to see we have these ideas about how things function, but if we look at the data, oftentimes it doesn't follow what our thinking is. And that's great that your telemetry systems, and the automated monitoring of both water levels and flow sensors, have been able to shed light on the head, middle, tail inequities that don't seem to exist.
So, that's a fantastic. So lastly, I guess, one thing. A lot of Pakistan is semi-arid and stuff, and so water scarcity is sort of a known, but then you experienced extreme flooding like you did in 2010 when maybe almost 2000 people died and maybe 2 million people impacted. So the challenge then, I guess, is to manage these extremes.
And you mentioned recently this project called Recharge Pakistan. And so maybe you can describe that a little bit. So if you could try to store the water from these periods of very high extremes to use, then later during droughts and managed aquifer recharge, and you recharge wells, dry wells in some of the cities. And maybe you can describe that Recharge Pakistan study and other efforts to even out these extremes.
[00:46:14] Azeem Shah: Yeah, so Pakistan again, is one of the hot spots of climate change impacts across the globe. It's always in the literature, I haven't always been able to find the exact ranking, but it's considered the top 10 country, and between the top 10 countries mostly impacted by climate change.
Although our contributions towards this greenhouse emissions are very low. So considering that we have seen this erratic sort of patterns of rainfall in the past so many years, so in my at least lifetime, the first biggest flood that I saw from my own eyes was 2010.
And then in 2022 was again, even a bigger flood. The major change between the 2010, it was Indus system flood. Basically all the water came in the Indus and its tributaries. And that really sort of impacted a lot of people. Land, property, livelihoods.
In 2022, a lot of water that came was as a result of torrential rains in different areas of the country in Balochistan in Punjab, and that is related to flash flooding. It was not a one river system flood, and that's why the destruction or devastation was even more as compared to 2010. So, this is again, a change in the climatic pattern. Coming back to your question and your comments about managed aquifer recharge, or these nature-based solutions or rainwater harvesting, I'm very glad that there's a lot of discussion or discourse around that currently.
This Recharge Pakistan project, is funded by Coca Cola, USAID, and World Wildlife Foundation. WWF is the implementing partner. So the whole idea is to, let's say, use the power of these nature-based solutions to let the reverse flow, for instance, and to let the water percolate down into the aquifer and use that, to carry out your sort of agriculture or whatever, productive use that you are making use of the waterfall.
So, this is resulting in multiple type of investments in the country. I've seen a lot of investments on the recharge wells, groundwater recharge wells, and these are mainly to harvest rainwater at the household level, at the sort of public parks level. In Islamabad, for instance, I mentioned the other day, Capital Development Authority has installed more than a hundred recharge wells at different locations, and Islamabad on average gets around a thousand millimeter rain per year. So, this is, to harness that potential. And similarly in Recharge Pakistan type projects, they are using these nature-based solutions, or wetland restoration, for instance. That's another area they are trying to propagate.
So this emphasis is going on. We, for instance, the facility I'm sitting in, we are trying to almost a hundred percent harness our rainwater through the recharge well, so we have indigenous sort of well installed here at our premises. The government has also forbidden now in many areas in the country to wash, let's say their vehicles within their homes just to conserve the water supply that is coming.
So some of these measures are being taken because there is a sensitivity around the fact that we have limited resource available and we have to conserve that. But still, harnessing the potential from these flash floods or hill tolerance, this is an area where a lot of work still needs to be done because a lot of this water is wasted.
And then primarily because we do not have proper diversion structures or storage is sort of downstream whereby we can store that water. There are some systems where they use it for agriculture purposes, but it is a very limited majority of this water goes down the drain. And then, that's a big issue that we are still confronting for a long time that the whole water, which 207 BCMI figure I quoted that figure, around 80-90% of that water is available in three to four months. So how to make sure that this quantity of water that we have available for those three to four months is available across the year.
So there we have to have the role of these recharge practices, manage, recharge basin solutions, or water conservation or the storages. And then we are lacking that trend where a lot of work still needs to be done.
[00:51:00] Bridget Scanlon: Right, right. So we've covered a lot of different topics, but there are many more that we could have covered. I think some of the interesting aspects also is that the headwaters of the Indus, it's glacier melting and stuff like that. So maybe high flows now, but in the long-term would be reduced flows because of those glaciers melting and stuff.
And then you mentioned early on you have an agreement with India since the sixties, but no agreement with Afghanistan and a lot of tributaries coming from Afghanistan. So it sounds like, that's job security for you, Azeem, and you've lots of different things to do in the future.
So, what do you think? I mean, seems to me the big picture is that agriculture is using too much water, considering the GDP contribution. And maybe in the past maybe more people were living in rural areas, but now they're moving to urban settings, so maybe that's helping. So with that huge amount of water that's used for agriculture, that provides a buffer.
But, so if you could move that into more WASH sector water, sanitation, hygiene and industry and stuff. And so, increasing recognition of the needs for water in these other sectors to improve the economy, and to reduce the over exploitation, it seemed like that would be sort of a long-term goal.
[00:52:20] Azeem Shah: It is. And, we as an organization, we strongly believe that this is the future we have to take. And, there is obviously thinking at the government level as well, now that this is the course that we have to really take. And what I see positive signs are there are now discussions going on, let's say, to supply Lahore with some surface water, supply Islamabad with some surface water supply diverted.
Similarly, Karachi, so these are the bigger cities in Pakistan, Karachi also with some surface water supplies. So that means that there is now a realization that the surface water supplies are not only meant for agriculture, but for the other sectors as well.
[00:53:04] Bridget Scanlon: Right, right. So, thank you so much Azeem. I would like to recommend to the readers to look at your book called Shared Waters State of the Basins, and I will include a link to that on the website when we publicize this podcast. Our guest today is Azeem Shah, he's an international researcher in water governance institutions at the International Water Management Institute based in Lahore, Pakistan.
Thank you so much for a wonderful discussion.
[00:53:32] Azeem Shah: My pleasure. I enjoyed the discussion. Thank you very much.
