WATER BALANCE, SUPPLY AND DEMAND AND IRRIGATION EFFICIENCY OF INDUS BASIN

The Indus Basin water is becoming scarce and its demand in rising over for various uses. The water resources statistics is often questionable and based on guesstimates. Keeping in view this assertion, the intent of this paper is to estimate the supply and demand coupled with projections for future in various sectors of economy. The study provides information on water balance and water use efficiency estimate in the competing sectors. The total water available is 274 BCM, of which 130 BCM is available for use, however 62 BCM is lost in the system besides out flow to the sea. The empirical results further revealed that gross water supply for agriculture was nearly 190 BCM while its demand was 210 BCM showing a shortfall of about 20 BCM. The projected estimates showed that this gap would be further widened by 27 BCM in the year 2015. The crop consumptive use is only 68 BCM and the remaining water is lost in the system. The domestic and Industrial supply and demand showed a shortfall of 5 BCM and 0.15 BCM respectively in the corresponding year. The irrigation application efficiency is 35 percent which abysmally low. Therefore, sound water management strategies are required to increase water productivity, minimize water losses and build a consensus on water dams.