Improving groundwater management to enhance agriculture and farming livelihoods: Socio-economic impact of groundwater resource use on the livelihood of farming communities in Eastern Punjab, Pakistan

Pakistan is the fourth largest groundwater extracting nation in the world, contributing around 9% to the extraction of groundwater worldwide. Around 5.2 million hectares of land are irrigated by groundwater in Pakistan, and this represents about 4.6% of the groundwater irrigated land globally (Siebert et al., 2010). The accessible groundwater supply is, however, insufficient to satisfy the ever-increasing demand and this has led to tremendous over-drafting pressure (Khan et al., 2008; Rodel et al., 2009; Wada et al., 2010). The proportion of groundwater used in irrigated agriculture has increased from just 8% in early 1960 to above 50% in 2016 (Byrelle and Siddiq, 1994; Qureshi et al., 2009; Qureshi et al., 2010; LEAD, 2016; Imran et al., 2018). In Punjab, for example, it has been estimated that groundwater provided 8% of farm water supply in 1960 (Byerleee and Siddiq, 1994), increasing to over 60% in 2019 (Qureshi and Ashraf, 2019). In the Indus Basin of Pakistan, around 60 km3 of groundwater is extracted each year and this is higher than the annual recharge rate which is around 55 km3 (Giordano, 2009). However, before this can be addressed, issues around estimating (net) water availability, equitable distribution of water, and incentives/policy instruments for capacity building of the water sector and farmers will need to be resolved. This will require technical knowledge and legal frameworks, but as a first step, a proper understanding of the socio-economics characteristics of farmers and the benefits involved is needed.