Pakistan could run out of water by 2025. Here's how

Western headlines would suggest that the potential for nuclear warfare on the Indian Subcontinent or terrorism in Islamabad present the greatest challenges to Pakistan's national security, but another, lesser-known risk threatens Pakistan in ways that India and al-Qaeda never could: water scarcity.

"Water scarcity represents a major threat to Pakistan's future stability, both in domestic and regional contexts," said Michael Kugelman, senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and an editor of Running on Empty: Pakistan's Water Crisis.

As a country with a population of over two hundred million, Pakistan consumes significant amounts of water. In fact, the South Asian country has the fourth-largest water footprint in the world. The Indus River, one of the longest in Asia, fulfills much of that need for Pakistanis, but the river can only do so much before Pakistanis find themselves on the brink of a humanitarian crisis.

"Given that the majority of the country continues to depend on agriculture and irrigation for its economic stability, an unstable water supply could pose a significant threat to millions," Dr Haider Warraich, a fellow at Duke University Medical Center, told The New Arab. 

"The supply of clean drinking water is also very important, given how essential it is to the control of infectious disease."

In June 2015, the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, issued the landmark report Issues in Managing Water Challenges: Regional Perspectives and Case Studies. The IMF observed that population growth had far outpaced water supply in Pakistan, contributing to water scarcity in a country with what the authors called "the world's largest irrigation system."

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