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International Conference on

Recent Trends in Environmental Sustainability

ESCON22/SAgri/01
Environmental challenges for groundwater-irrigated agriculture in Punjab Pakistan

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Ghulam Zakir-Hassan 1,2,3*, Ghulam Shabir , Fouzia Yasmin , and Mubashir Ali Ghaffar
1 Irrigation Research Institute (IRI), Government of the Punjab, Irrigation Department, Library
Road, Lahore 54500, Pakistan
2 School of Environmental Sciences, Charles Sturt University, NSW, Australia
3 Institute for Land Water and Society (ILWS), Charles Sturt University, NSW, Australia
4 Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan Pakistan

Correspondence: zakirjg@gmail.com
Abstract:

Food and fibre, the two basic needs for existence of human life, have been under serious threat
due to ever increasing population and global climatic changes which have given birth to many
sustainability and environmental challenges. Irrigated agriculture in Pakistan contributes about
22% to GDP, 66% to foreign exchange and over 90% to food production. Increasing population
and consequently the food demand has increased the pressure on groundwater due to limited
availability and uneven distribution over space and time of surface water. Punjab province
being the food-basket for the country where irrigated agriculture is playing vital role in food
security for the country since construction of the largest contagious irrigation system during
nineteenth century. Initially designed cropping intensity was 67% (1947), which has increased
to 150-170% (2016) which led to the increased use of groundwater. Due to extensive extraction
of groundwater, Pakistan has become the 4th largest user of groundwater after India, USA &
China. In Pakistan annual groundwater extraction has increased from 4 million-acre-feet
(MAF) in 1960 to 50-55 MAF (2015). Currently groundwater is meeting about 40-50% crop
water-requirements in Punjab. In many areas the unplanned and over pumping has caused
falling of water levels and intrusion of saline water into fresh groundwater areas. Cost of
pumpage has also manifolds due to falling water levels in the aquifer. This situation has caused
serious challenges for irrigated agriculture to feed the tremendously increasing population.
Lack of regulatory holistic framework, unawareness among the stakeholders, complex nature
of existence, entitlements rights, reduction of recharge due to urbanization/pavements,
discharge of effluents (domestic, industrial, agricultural), increasing cropping intensities,
unplanned over pumpage, industrialization, and multiple users are the major challenges for the
unsustainable use of groundwater. This situation has put the water and energy security and
consequently the irrigated agriculture under serious threats. Resultantly the environmental
issues like abnormal lowering of water table in sweet groundwater areas, inter-mixing of saline
and fresh groundwater, more energy requirements with declining water levels, deterioration of
quality, threats to agriculture due to secondary salinization etc have emerged as recent era
constraints for food security and livelihood. In this paper impacts of environmental threats on
groundwater quality in district Vehari area in South Punjab region of Pakistan have been
evaluated and fitness of groundwater has been assessed. How the new regulatory frameworks
initiated by the government like Punjab Water Policy 2018 and Punjab Water Act 2019 can be
effective in this regard., is also part of paper.

Keywords: Environmental challenges; groundwater; agriculture; Punjab; Pakistan

Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Vehari Campus

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