THE State of Global Water Resources 2025 published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) provides a comprehensive assessment of global hydrological conditions. For South Asia, and particularly Pakistan, the findings are alarming. The floods of 2025, suggestive of the catastrophic inundations of 2010 and 2022, exposed once again the fragility of Pakistan’s water governance and infrastructure. Historically, the Indus Basin has been the backbone of Pakistan’s agriculture and economy, but climate variability, glacial retreat, and mismanagement now threaten this lifeline. The position here is clear: Pakistan’s water crisis is systemic, not episodic, and requires urgent reform.

The WMO report is retrospective, offering scientific evidence rather than policy prescriptions. Yet its findings demand immediate action. Are Pakistan’s policymakers genuinely integrating this evidence into planning, or are they reacting only when disasters strike? Why does hydrological monitoring remain weak, leaving groundwater and reservoir data incomplete? And why, despite repeated floods, does Pakistan still lack systematic disaster-loss accounting? The report notes that two thirds of monitored wells worldwide showed abnormal conditions in 2025, with deficits worsening compared to 2024. For Pakistan, where groundwater sustains much of Punjab’s agriculture, this raises a........

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