Groundwater depletion accelerates in Punjab
Pakistan is rapidly moving toward a serious water emergency, with experts cautioning that billions of gallons of rainwater continue to flow into drains and rivers every year instead of replenishing depleted underground reserves. According to The Express Tribune, water specialists have warned that Punjab's groundwater is shrinking at an alarming pace, with Lahore witnessing a steady decline in its water table due to unchecked urbanisation, excessive groundwater extraction, expanding concrete infrastructure, and growing demand for water.
Muhammad Yasin, a water resources expert at Punjab University, said Lahore's groundwater level is dropping by nearly one to one-and-a-half metres annually. He explained that widespread construction has reduced the city's natural ability to absorb rainwater, forcing most monsoon runoff into drainage networks rather than allowing it to recharge underground aquifers.
Technologies to combat water loss
Yasin stated that technologies such as recharge wells, filtration pits, bioswales, and infiltration systems could help restore groundwater while also reducing urban flooding during heavy rains. Punjab University and WWF-Pakistan have jointly established a rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge project that channels rooftop and surface runoff through filtration systems before injecting the treated water back into underground aquifers, demonstrating a practical model for water conservation.
Abid Latif Sandhu, RUDA Environment Director, warned that relentless pumping is exhausting shallow aquifers and pushing dependence towards deep fossil water reserves that accumulated over thousands, and in some cases millions, of years. He cautioned that these ancient reserves cannot be naturally replenished within a human lifetime, as cited by The Express Tribune.
Contamination and policy gaps
Sandhu also raised concerns over groundwater contamination from untreated industrial waste, municipal sewage, agricultural chemicals, and toxic heavy metals, warning that polluted water is increasingly replacing clean freshwater resources. He urged authorities to make rainwater harvesting mandatory in all new housing developments, establish community recharge wells across urban areas, regulate extraction from deep aquifers, and introduce a comprehensive national water management policy covering the entire water cycle, as reported by The Express Tribune.
