By Muhammad Soban ISLAMABAD, May 11 (INP-WealthPK): Pakistan is among the water-stressed countries of the world. It has been facing declining water availability and quality, growing water pollution, and environmental insecurity. All these problems are due to improper water governance, reports WealthPK. As an agricultural country, Pakistan's economy is heavily dependent on water. The agricultural sector consumes approximately 97 percent of freshwater which makes up 18 percent of Pakistan's GDP. There is no proper mechanism to utilize freshwater inflows. Pakistan can only store 10 percent of the average annual flow of its rivers, which is far below the world’s average storage capacity of 40 percent. According to the IMF, Pakistan is one of the 36 most water-stressed countries. Pakistan’s water issues are due to ineffective management. Unequal access and distribution, growing population, urbanization, progressive industrialization, lack of storage capacity, and climate risk make water management a difficult task. Climate change has been causing shifts in the weather pattern in different parts of the country. Pakistan Research Centre for a Community with Shared Future (PRCCSF) recently organized an online international conference on the topic of “Understanding Water Governance and Management Strategies: Finding Solutions for Common Challenges.” The participants from Pakistan and China discussed practical challenges in governing water resources for their countries. Maryam Raza, Deputy Director of PRCCSF, emphasized the importance of water resource management and governance in Pakistan. She added that it was important to learn from China about their achievements in water governance, flood control, and water conservation, supply, and efficacy. In recent years, China has worked hard on improving water management including institutional reforms and water regulatory systems. Zhong Kai Feng from Hohai University said China had also gone through similar water management and governance problems, adding that China could assist Pakistan in water policy reforms that it had implemented during the last few years to improve water governance and management. Participants from both Pakistan and China discussed the problems and their solutions related to water management. Pakistan can use the Chinese strategies to improve water resource management. With the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization, the demand for water resources grows rapidly. Pakistan’s per capita water availability has decreased to 1,017 cubic meters. The contradiction between limited water resources supplies and the growing water resources demand is becoming seriously affecting the food safety and agriculture economy. To counter this problem, Pakistan can take measures such as the improvement in the efficiency of agricultural water, wastewater treatment, water-saving awareness, and new countryside constructions. Moreover, to fulfil the need, Pakistan needs three to four large dams. Currently, the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) is constructing three big dams with the help of Chinese experts, including Mohmand, Diamer-Bhasha, and Dasu dams, with a total capacity of 1.5, 10, and 1.4 BCM, respectively. Groundwater is the major source of drinking water that provides over 93 percent of drinking water in Pakistan. It provides 60 percent water to the agriculture sector. Pakistan has no groundwater management regulatory authority that controls the depth and number of tube wells in Pakistan. Anyone can install any number of tube wells at any depth. This is leading to an alarming level of decline in the water table. There is a need to develop an authority to manage the number of tub wells and their depth. Though Pakistan has one of the largest water irrigation systems globally, it has lost a large amount of water due to mismanagement. There is a need to use Chinese expertise to increase efficiency in the existing water usage in agriculture, which can be achieved by improving farms layout and levelling fields, using high-efficiency irrigation systems including bed and furrow irrigation, pressurized irrigation such as sprinkler and drip irrigation. Pakistan can also use these initiatives taken by China to improve the governance of water resource management and save water for its next generations.