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Read, Debate: Engage.
| topic: | Sustainable Development |
|---|---|
| located: | Afghanistan |
| editor: | Shadi Khan Saif |
Editor’s Note: This article is part of our groundwater campaign, in observance of the UN Water Day. Find more groundwater-related articles here.
Bearing the brunt of foreign meddling that has led to deadly instability for decades, Afghanistan is battling for survival amid dwindling international attention and shrinking humanitarian support. As a victim of cruel geostrategic priorities of the global powers, the war-ravaged country has been kept afloat to a large extent by the global humanitarian community while the nations - partly or fully responsible for the country’s crisis - remain on the side-line or busy with other wars, this time in Europe.
For the massive humanitarian plan chalked out by some of the reputed organisations, a number of priority areas, such as food security, healthcare and shelter have been identified. The only one forgotten or overlooked is the looming water crisis in the mountainous country, which is prone to persistent droughts, despite having reasonable amounts of snow and rainfall at certain times of the year.
Multiple studies have warned that groundwater sustainability in most of Afghanistan, including the Kabul region, faces many challenges, posing threats to the lives and livelihoods of millions of Afghans. It is feared that if the present trend of over-exploitation of underground water continues, the supply of drinking water will be most affected in the areas where there is an overall 100 percent dependence on groundwater. There is a decreasing trend in groundwater storage, and if it persists in the future, it will have dire consequences for the municipal water sector, according to a number of experts.
Even before the current political and security crisis, mass deforestation, melting glaciers and four decades of war have contributed to widespread flooding and subsequent spells of drought throughout Afghanistan, prompting many in rural areas to move to Kabul or leave the country.
As per the country's Ministry of Water and Energy (MoWE), groundwater levels in Kabul have dropped by 5 percent and people have needed to use snowfall and rainwater to fill their dried-up wells in order to raise groundwater levels.
As the UN and other humanitarian agencies undertake the mammoth-scale task of filling in for the government (since the de facto Taliban authorities are not recognised by the international community so far), there is an opportunity to correct some of the long-standing issues.
It is high time to incorporate projects for water conservation and promoting responsible use of water in the humanitarian agenda for Afghanistan, as environmentalists warn against deadly heat waves, crippling droughts and other weather extremes that will hamper the population’s access to clean drinking water and irrigation water.
The global humanitarian community, as well as the global powers indebted to the Afghan people, should take onboard the locals to introduce new policies and replace the old-fashioned practices with ecologically friendly ones to store water, recharge groundwater and promote methods of agriculture that require minimal water use.
Photo by Oleksandr Sushko
