Groundwater Governance & Management in Pakistan-2: Post #10

B. What do we mean by groundwater management?

In the literature, “groundwater resources management has to deal with balancing the exploitation of a complex resource (in terms of quantity, quality and surface water interactions) with the increasing demand of land and water users (who can pose threat to the resource availability and quality). 

In other words, groundwater resources management has two dominant dimensions: (i) demand-side groundwater management that deals with socio-economic aspect and (ii) supply-side groundwater management associated with hydro-geological aspect.

Groundwater resources management primarily focuses on a sustainable development of the resources by undertaking the following measures:

• ·   Balancing recharge or addition into basin’s storage with groundwater discharges or extractions for human, economic and environmental purposes;
• ·  Protection of groundwater resources from pollution;
•     Control of haphazard and excessive pumping to maintain proper water yield and groundwater quality;
•     Transformation from the ongoing vicious cycle to a virtuous cycle through proper groundwater management.

Groundwater management issues can be described under the following three categories (as reported in an internet based presentation):

1.     Management Functions
a.     Basin planning;

b.     Resource allocation;

c.      Pollution control;

d.     Prevention of side effects; and

e.      Information management.

2.     Technical Inputs:

a.     Resource assessment;

b.     Quality evaluation; and

c.      Aquifer monitoring.

3.     Institutional Provisions:

a.     Water rights;

b.      Regulatory provision;

c.       Water legislation;

d.      Stakeholders’ participation;

e.       Awareness and education; and

f.       Economic valuation instruments.