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Friday March 29, 2024

Pakistan has 164 of 57,000 dams built worldwide

By Sabir Shah
September 03, 2018

LAHORE: Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar’s initiative to raise funds for the Diamer-Bhasha and Mohmand dams is both laudable and timely because Pakistan just has 164 of the more than 57,000 dams existing worldwide, and researchers have predicted that the country is fast on its way to becoming the most water-stressed nation in the region by the year 2040.

According to the latest report of the 90-year old “International Commission on Large Dams” in Paris, following is the ist of countries with 100 and more dams:

China (23,841), United States of America (9,265), India (5,100), Japan (3,118), Brazil (1,364), South Korea (1,338), Canada (1,169), South Africa (1,112), Spain (1,063), Albania (1,008), Turkey (974), France (709), United Kingdom (593) Mexico (570), Australia (567), Italy (541), Iran (520), Germany (371), Norway (335), Zimbabwe (254), Romania (244), Thailand (218), Portugal (217), Sweden (190), Bulgaria (181), Austria (175), Pakistan (164), Greece (162), Switzerland (162), Morocco (150), Algeria (144), Indonesia (135), Tunisia (126), Afghanistan (126), Czech Republic (118), Argentina (114) and Mali (112).

Interestingly, Luxembourg just has three dams, Egypt has seven, Denmark has 11, Holland has 12, Belgium has 15, Bosnia and Herzegovina has 25, Iceland has 29, Finland has 56, Malaysia has 58, Russia and Poland have 69 each, Sri Lanka has 88, New Zealand has 96, Myanmar has 33 and Nepal has 6 only.

Some facts about water shortage in Pakistan:

In June 2018, renowned German international broadcaster “Deutsche Welle (DW)” had reported: “Pakistan could “run dry” by 2025 as its water shortage is reaching an alarming level. The authorities remain negligent about the crisis that’s posing a serious threat to the country’s stability. Pakistan has the world’s fourth-highest rate of water use. Its water intensity rate — the amount of water, in cubic meters, used per unit of GDP — is the world’s highest. This suggests that no country’s economy is more water-intensive than Pakistan’s. According to the IMF, Pakistan’s per capita annual water availability is 1,017 cubic metres — perilously close to the scarcity threshold of 1,000 cubic metres. Back in 2009, Pakistan’s water availability was about 1,500 cubic metres. According to IMF, Pakistan ranks third in the world among countries facing acute water shortage.”

The “Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources” had reported in 2016 that Pakistan had touched the “water stress line” in 1990 and crossed the “water scarcity line” in 2005.

According to the “Indus River System Authority,” Pakistan receives around 145 million acre feet of water every year but can only save 13.7 million acre feet.

Pakistan needs 40 million acre feet of water but 29 million acre feet of its floodwater is wasted because of fewer dams, the “Indus River System Authority” had raised alarm bells in June this year.

According to the “World Commission on Dams,” “the International Commission on Large Dams” and the Washington DC-based “National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Earth Observatory report,” the Tarbela Dam in Pakistan is the largest earth filled dam in the world and is second largest by the structural volume, whereas the Mirani Dam is the largest dam in the world in terms of volume for flood protection with a flood stock of 588,690 cubic hectometer.

Similarly, the Sabakzai dam in Zhob (Balochistan) is 7th largest with a flood stock of 23,638 cubic hectometer.

Research shows that the rate at which large dams are completed has declined from around 1,000 a year from the 1950s to the mid-1970s to around 260 a year during the early 1990s.

More than 3,700 hydro-power projects, according to the United Nations, are either planned or are under construction worldwide on the world’s rivers.

While Dams have great advantages for any country, they can displace a large number of people if not conceived or planned properly.

For example, between 40 and 80 million people currently stand displaced by dams in India and China alone.

More than 13,500 people have been swept to their deaths by the roughly 200 dams outside China which have collapsed or been overtopped during the 20th century.

Two large dams which burst when a massive typhoon hit the Chinese province of Henan in August 1975 left an estimated 80,000 to 230,000 dead.

This disaster was kept secret by the Chinese government and was only revealed to the outside world in 1995. People have also died in earthquakes caused by the great weight of water in large reservoirs. Magnitude 6.3 earthquakes caused by Koyna Dam in India in 1967 had killed around 180 people.

Access to clean drinking water in Pakistan and a global comparison:

According to a March 2017 report of the “Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources,” 44 per cent of the Pakistani population had no access to clean drinking water. In rural areas, this figure was 90 per cent.

It was estimated last year that about 200,000 children in Pakistan die every year of Diarrhea alone.

Although good progress has been made globally in making clean drinking water accessible to 2.6 billion people in developing countries from 1990 to 2015, some 844 million or more than one of every 10 inhabitants of planet Earth still lack access to this most essential component of life, the “United Nations” has estimated.

Women and girls spend an estimated 200 million hours hauling water every day. The average woman in rural Africa walks 6 kilometers every day to haul 40 pounds of water. Every day, more than 800 children under age 5 die from diarrhea attributed to poor water and sanitation. 2.3 billion people live without access to basic sanitation.

Over a billion people practice open defecation. Over 90 percent of all natural disasters are water-related.

A United Nations report states that by 2025, around 1.9 billion people will live in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world population could be under stress conditions.

More than one in every six people in the world is water stressed, meaning that they do not have sufficient access to potable water.

Those that are water stressed make up 1.1 billion people in the world and are living in developing countries.

A country or region is said to experience “water stress” when annual water supplies drop below 1,700 cubic metres per person per year. At levels between 1,700 and 1,000 cubic meters per person per year, periodic or limited water shortages can be expected.

When a country is below 1,000 cubic meters per person per year, the country then faces water scarcity. In 2006, about 700 million people in 43 countries were living below the 1,700 cubic metres per person threshold.

Research further shows that during the 1800s, water shortages were highlighted first in British historical records.

In 1854, scientists had discovered the link between water and the spread of Cholera during an outbreak in London.

By 1866, there were 136 public water systems in the United States, and by the turn of the century, there were 3,000.

Since 1900, more than 11 billion people have died from drought, which has overall affected more than 2 billion people.

In 1972, the United States had come with a law to control water pollution and funds construction of sewage treatment plants.

By 2005, some 35 percent of the global population was experiencing chronic water shortages, up from 9 percent in 1960.

In 2015, the United Nations had estimated that about 2.6 billion people had gained access to clean water in last 25 years, and about 1.4 billion had gained basic access to sanitation since 2000.

In 2018, the United Nations revealed that worldwide, 2.1 billion people were still living without safe drinking water in their homes and more than one billion people still have no choice but to defecate outside.

While the world’s population tripled in the 20th century, the use of renewable water resources has grown six-fold. Within the next 50 years, the world population will increase by another 40 to 50 %. This population growth - coupled with industrialization and urbanization - will result in an increasing demand for water and will have serious consequences on the environment.

Founded in 1996, the France-based “World Water Council” has noted: “As the resource is becoming scarce, tensions among different users may intensify, both at the national and international level. Over 260 river basins are shared by two or more countries. In the absence of strong institutions and agreements, changes within a basin can lead to trans-boundary tensions.”