Exercice de géographie en anglais

Pakistan

In recent years, Pakistan has suffered from severe water shortages, flooding and declining water quality. The worsening water crisis must be resolved if the country is ever to achieve stability. A blueprint for managing the water crisis is suggested that includes slowing population growth and normalizing relations with India.

Pakistan’s population has been growing rapidly, increasing the pressure on agriculture, power supply and domestic water demand. There is an urgent need for effective policies to be drafted to combat population growth. Increasing access to voluntary family planning services can help slow population growth.

In 1960, India and Pakistan, agreed on the Indus Waters Treaty. Without much consideration of efficiency, three of the rivers: the Beas, Ravi, and Sutlej were given to India, and the other three rivers: the Indus, Chenab, and Jhelum, were essentially given to Pakistan.

Despite this agreement, Pakistan still feels vulnerable and lacks trust in India because the three rivers it received in the treaty, flow through areas that are controlled by India. Pakistan has protested against certain Indian activities on these rivers, including the construction of dams for water storage and hydroelectricity, because it believes that these activities will prevent water from reaching its agricultural areas farther south. Pakistan worries that in the event of a military conflict India could cut off its water supply, as New Delhi did in 1948 and 1949, or even attempt to flood Pakistan by releasing water from the dams.

Nepal

In rural areas in Nepal, people are reliant on springs and streams, or old leaking pipes, with no guarantee that the water is clean. A strategy to obtain clean accessible water is rainwater harvesting. The main purpose of the rainwater harvesting is to use the locally available rainwater to have water requirements throughout the year without the need of huge capital expenditure. This would facilitate the availability of uncontaminated water for domestic, industrial, and irrigation needs.

Nepal struggles with the lack of surface water storage, which is a major problem, especially in the dry season, due mainly to public opposition to dam building. It therefor suggests that Nepal’s legal provisions should address many of the recommendations made in Dams and Development. The way forward is for Nepal to continue the process of preparing its own guidelines on dams and development. The consultative process has shown that a participatory approach can yield encouraging outcomes in developing Nepal’s water resources with sensitivity to both society and nature.

Sri Lanka

The demand for water is high especially for agriculture that one third of the population is engaged in. Therefor an effective strategy could be the Drip irrigation. The drip irrigation is the most efficient and appropriate irrigation system. Instead of wetting the whole field surface, and use a significant amount on water, you only apply water to the plant root zone. The primary goal of drip irrigation is to apply water at the time when plants need it most and in rates needed for proper plant growth.

Sri Lanka struggels with drought areas in the north and east with a high demand for irrigation water, to agriculture, however at present there is no infrastructure in place to transfer water from the wetter areas. Therefor a strategy is to use the desalination process which is the removal of the salts present in seawater. To do this, the process begins by drawing ocean water via an intake pump from a beach well or from an intake pipe buried on the seafloor. This water enters into an equalization tank or basin. Its efficient because seawater isn’t fitting for agricultural purpose, and if the only water nearby is saltwater streams, we can use it to create water for use.

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