A child drinks water from the tap. PHOTO: REUTERS
ISLAMABAD:
Only 47 percent of Pakistanis have access to clean drinking water, experts warned at a seminar organized by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) in Islamabad, highlighting the country’s deepening water quality crisis and its dire consequences for public health, productivity and sustainable development.
Dr. Hifza Rasheed, Director General (Water Quality) at the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), revealed at the event “The Thirst for Safety: Water Quality and Public Health in Pakistan” that Pakistan’s per capita freshwater availability has fallen from 5,260 cubic meters in 1951 to below 1,000 cubic meters in the nation, placing 2024 water.
Dr. Rasheed and Dr. Shujaat Farooq, Dean (Research) at PIDE, emphasized that unsafe water contributes to nearly 40 percent of diseases nationwide and called for urgent, coordinated and climate-resilient reforms to protect Pakistan’s water future.
The session brought together experts, researchers and students to discuss the country’s deepening water quality crisis and its implications for health, productivity and sustainable development.
Opening the seminar, Dr. Farooq that despite Pakistan’s abundant natural resources, pollution, over-extraction and institutional fragmentation have made water insecurity one of the country’s most pressing public health challenges.
Citing UNICEF data, he said nearly 70% of households consume contaminated water and 30-40% of diseases – including diarrhoea, hepatitis and typhoid – stem from unsafe water. “The challenge,” he stressed, “is not just scarcity, but weak coordination and leadership.”
Dr. Rasheed presented a national overview and revealed that Pakistan’s per capita freshwater availability has declined from 5,260 m³ in 1951 to below 1,000 m³ in 2024, placing the country in the water scarcity category.
Agriculture uses about 93% of total freshwater, but irrigation efficiency remains below 40%. In Punjab alone, more than 1.3 million tube wells extract about 50 million acre-feet of groundwater every year, leading to severe depletion.
PCRWR data indicates that only 47% of Pakistan’s population currently has access to clean drinking water, a modest improvement from 39% in 2022, but still far from the SDG 6.1 target of universal access by 2030.
She warned that unsafe water causes approx. 53,000 child deaths annually and contributes to high stunting rates affecting 44% of children nationwide. Industrial effluents, pesticides and untreated sewage are major pollutants, with arsenic contamination acute in southern Punjab and Sindh. Only 38% of wastewater is treated before discharge.
Dr. Rasheed highlighted climate risks that Pakistan ranks fifth among the world’s most water insecure nations. The 2025 floods caused $14.9 billion in damage, worsening pollution and disease.
