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Pakistan Faces 30% Water Shortage at Start of Sowing Season

🌾 Pakistan is grappling with a significant 30% water shortage as the sowing season for crucial cash crops like rice and cotton kicks off. The country’s water regulator, the Indus River System Authority (IRSA), attributes this gap to lower-than-normal winter snowfall in the northern glacier regions, which feed the Indus and Jhelum rivers essential for irrigation.

\"There was less snow than normal as a result of climate change affecting the country's glaciers,\" explained Muhammad Azam Khan, assistant researcher with IRSA. This reduction in snowfall is set to directly impact the availability of water for Kharif crops during the summer months.

Kharif crops, including rice, maize, sugarcane, and cotton, thrive in a wet and warm climate with ample rainfall, typically sown in April. While the water shortage is expected to lessen with the arrival of monsoon rains, Pakistan's meteorological department has forecasted higher-than-normal temperatures this season, adding uncertainty to the situation.

Agriculture remains the backbone of Pakistan's economy, contributing about 24% of its GDP. Khan emphasized the need for better planning and resource management to optimize the limited water available for these vital crops.

Pakistan, the world’s fifth-largest country with over 250 million people, has been increasingly affected by climate change, which has led to unpredictable weather patterns and severe events like the devastating floods in 2022. These floods, linked to climate change, impacted more than 30 million people and severely damaged the cotton crop that year.

As the sowing season progresses, authorities and farmers are hopeful that the monsoon rains will alleviate the water shortage, but the looming threat of higher temperatures remains a concern for the agricultural sector.

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