Visit to Islamabad COMSATS Univ.

From April 22 through 27, Wolfgang Kinzelbach and Haijing Wang visited COMSATS University, Islamabad, Pakistan. SDC Pakistan funded a small pilot project on water metering. It addresses water saving, water metering and water pricing in Islamabad. As in many cities in the developing world, water infrastructure is in a bad shape, especially in view of the fact that the city was originally planned for 100’000 inhabitants and now has to cope with about 1 million. The water – when it is available – is supplied practically for free for 3 hours per day to households, businesses, schools and other public institutions. At the end of the lines and on days where the whole supply breaks down, a fleet of tankers supplies water, however against a sizable fee, to the houses’ underground or roof top water tank. The project collects data on typical use of water by means of smart water meters with real time data transfer to the university institute. The pattern of use allows to get first ideas on efficient water saving. The water use in the relatively well-to-do pilot area is highly correlated to rainfall. When there is rain, water use drops considerably. This allows the conclusion that a sizable amount of the free water is used for watering gardens and washing cars. The project started an awareness campaign which gives advice on water saving. Besides two dams the aquifer below the city serves as water resource. This aquifer is overused with groundwater tables declining at a speed of 2 m/year. The strategy is to improve supply reliability from the dams so that less groundwater needs to be pumped from the aquifer. Wolfgang Kinzelbach gave two talks on the sustainable management of overpumped aquifers, illustrated by the concrete experience of the China Groundwater Project.