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PESHAWAR, Nov 16 (APP): With a hoe resting loosely on his shoulder and worry etched across his face, 32-year-old farmer Malyar Ali surveyed the sand-choked canal that once gave life to his wheat fields especially in winter.
This winter, the trickle of water passing through Tarkha-Mohib Banda canal in Pabbi, Nowshera, is barely enough for wheat irrigation, praying for rainfall.
“The water in canal has decreased, and farmers are struggling to sow wheat,” he said, pointing to the cracked bed of a link watercourse damaged by the August floods.
“We are trying to clear the water channels ourselves, but the task is too big. The wheat cultivation season is passing fast, and all we can do is pray for rain.”
Malyar’s struggle echoes the plight of thousands of farmers across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where prolonged drought, land degradation, and shrinking water resources have emerged as severe threats to agriculture, livestock and to life itself.
Prolonged drought, land degradation and desertification now threaten nearly two billion people worldwide, mostly in arid and semi-arid regions where natural resources especially water are rapidly depleting.
“Globally, an estimated six million hectares of productive land and USD 42 billion in economic losses occur every year due to land degradation,” said Professor Dr. Muhammad Naeem, former Chairman Economics Department at University of Peshawar while talking to APP.
He said Pakistan is among the countries most at risk due to depleting water resources aimed climate change effects.
While referring to national water policy 2018, he warned that the country was fast moving toward water stress due to shortage of dames and waste of water resources.
He claimed that per capita water availability has fallen from 5,260 cubic meters in 1951 to just 1,000 cubic meters in 2016, and could drop to 860 cubic meters by 2025 which is a level considered absolute water scarcity mostly in KP.
Compounding the water scarcity is a steep decline in groundwater levels, particularly in KP, Punjab and Sindh, where around one million tube wells now extract more than 55 million acre-feet (MAF) of water annually—20% more than the supply from canals.
“Water and electricity theft through illegal connections is causing massive economic losses to the Govt kitty,” he said, citing reports that Pakistan loses about Rs600 billion annually to electricity pilferage only.
He warned that if decisive action was not taken, losses could soar to about Rs520 billion this year, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone losing around Rs137 billion annually.
“Delays in major hydropower projects like Mohmand and Diamer Bhasha have widened the gap between electricity demand and supply besides exceberated water shortages,” he added
“Of its 79.6 million hectares of land, he said that nearly 70 percent is arid to semi-arid in Pakistan exposed to drought, land degradation and desertification due to lack of dams,” said Dr Ikram-ur-Rehman, former Provincial Coordinator of the Sustainable Land Management Programme (SLMP-II).
“Every year, about 1.5 to 2.5 million hectares of irrigated land, 3.5 to 4 million hectares of rain-fed farmland, and around 35 million hectares of rangelands are becoming barren,” he told APP.
“Western Sindh, Balochistan and southern KP are particularly vulnerable, where underground aquifers are shrinking rapidly due to over-extraction without natural recharge.”
There are around 46,000 big and small dams globally—China alone has over 22,000 and India more than 5,300—but Pakistan has built only about 150 since independence,” he said.
While large dams face years of planning and political disputes, experts say small and medium dams offer quicker and more practical solutions.
Engr Fakhre Alam Khan, spokesperson for the Small Dams project at the Irrigation Department, highlighted that Pakistan, blessed with more than 24 rivers, has hundreds of natural sites suitable for dam construction.
“Small dams take just two to three years to build, and Pakistan will need an additional 76 MAF of water by 2050. Meeting this demand depends on rapidly constructing these smaller reservoirs.”
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has made significant progress in small dams construction, he said, adding a total of 37 small and medium dams have been completed—15 run by the provincial government, 11 by WAPDA, and 10 in merged districts collectively irrigating over 137,000 acres and storing more than 341,000 acre-feet of water.
Under the federal Public Sector Development Program (PSDP), he said 24 more dams with a cumulative storage capacity of 75,008 acre-feet are under construction.
Completed small dams projects include Pezu Dam (Lakki Marwat), Khattak Bandhan (Kohat), Makh Banda (Karak), Manchura and Ichar (Mansehra), Sarozai (Hangu), Sanam (Lower Dir), Bada and Ulta (Swabi), among others.
Additionally, seven more medium dams—including Bara, Tank Zam, Sheikh Haider Zam, Chaudwan Zam, Daraban, and Kora Nullah—with a combined capacity of 520,884 acre-feet are in the design stage.
In a positive development, KP Chief Minister Muhammad Sohail Afridi recently inaugurated the 40.8-megawatt Koto Hydropower Project in Lower Dir. Completed at a cost of Rs21.7 billion, the project is expected to generate 207 million units of electricity annually bringing in Rs2.4 billion in revenue.
For poor Malyar Ali and countless other farmers, these engineering feats offer hope but they also know that time is running out for wheat cultivation.
Standing beside his parched canal, Malyar said, “If small dams are built quickly, our villages can survive. Without water, we have nothing.”
As Pakistan confronts escalating climate threats, small dams may well be the fastest shield protecting farmlands, preserving rangelands, and securing the nation’s food future.