Groundwater plays an important role in supporting the humanity by providing the basic needs of food, fiber and shelter and underpinning the livelihood especially in rural areas in Pakistan. Land and water and air are the essential natural resources to support the food security and human health. Groundwater plays important role in nutritional health as it supports about 100% drinking water requirements in Pakistan. Quality deterioration of groundwater is a big challenge in Indus Basin in Pakistan. Both natural and anthropogenic sources are creating threats for the quality of groundwater. Domestic, agricultural and industrial effluents are sources of pollution of groundwater resources. More than 80% diseases are the waterborne. Unsafe drinking water is a source of many diseases including typhoid, intestinal worms, and hepatitis etc. Globally 780 million and in Pakistan 100 million people are exposed to unsafe water. Groundwater is a major player in nutrition value addition and ensuring food-security. Punjab province of Pakistan is major user of groundwater (more than 80% extraction), where groundwater contamination is posing severe health problems. Over extraction of groundwater is resulting in mixing of fresh-brackish groundwater layers. Use of wastewater in peripheries of the urban cities by the irrigators for growing vegetables is also a major concern for human health.1 Groundwater management, protection of its quality by putting in and implementation in true sense leading to sustainable use of groundwater can yield positive results for health and nutrition.

Faisalabad is the 3rd largest city of Pakistan where underlying aquifer mostly contains saline water. Heavy population of the city needs huge quantity of fresh water. Water requirements for the existing Faisalabad city are being met by installation of well-fields along Jhang Branch canal, where groundwater is fresh. The increasing population pressure requires more water and identify more suitable sites for installation of well-field on sustainable basis. It was deemed imperative to elevate the existing well field. The MODFLOW, a numerical groundwater model developed by United States Geological Survey (USGS) for simulation and future prediction of aquifer behavior in response to pumping by various well fields was developed, calibrated and validated satisfactorily. A groundwater decomposition approach was also developed to tune various coefficients used in estimation of inflow and outflow components of groundwater system. The calibrated model was used to predict the future response of aquifer under different scenarios of pumping by existing and future/proposed wellfields. Calibrated flow model revealed that a sink has already been developed at the center of existing well-field of Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) due to excessive pumpage. Future predictions of model indicate that there is no conspicuous change in regional groundwater flow pattern, even with all the existing tubewells remain in operation. However, the sink in the WASA well field area further deepens, and flow gradients become comparatively steep showing increase in groundwater flow velocity. Depth to watertable has already increased from 12 m in 2005 to 16 m in 2011 in the critical area of WASA well field. Model has predicted that this depth will further increase to 24 m in 2018. It has also been observed that groundwater quality along the river is fresh and becomes saline towards Faisalabad city. Due to pumpage in the freshwater zone model predicts that saline water will rush towards well fields deteriorating the quality of fresh water along Jhang Branch Canal. Therefore, it has been suggested that site for further pumping should be moved towards upstream of Jhang Branch Canal at least up to RD 180-187 and possibly on right side of the canal instead of left side

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa launched the Billion Tree Afforestation Project (BTAP) in 2014. Pakistan also initiated a “10 billion trees in five years” project in 2018. The soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) model was used to forecast the impacts of LULC changes on water yield under three scenarios: before planting, after 1 billion trees planted, and after 10 billion trees planted. Model calibration and validation were undertaken at the Bisham Qila gauging station from 1984 to 2000 and 2001 to 2010. The Tarbela reservoir’s mean annual runoff declined from 53.70 mm to 45.40 mm after 1 billion trees planted, while under the third scenario it approximated 35.05 mm.