The National Water Policy (NWP) revolves around the concept of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and has strategically prioritised some principles, including conservation and efficiency of water resources, trying to deal with erratic rainfall patterns, increase in water storage, seawater utilisation and other key areas.

Furthermore, the policy has prioritised various water uses with the foremost attention to drinking and sanitation, followed by irrigation, including land reclamation, livestock, fisheries and wildlife, hydropower, industry and mining, environment, river systems, wetlands, aquatic life, forestry and recreation.

The NWP also urges the adoption of the principles of integrated planning along with water resources planning, conservation measures to upgrade the existing resources, development of water resources, detailed assessment of climatic impacts on water resources, priority irrigation infrastructure for water-scarce areas, special preference to projects planned for less developed regions and compensation for the implementation of water-sector projects.

The policy emphasises on maintaining the environmental integrity of the river basin, afforestation, ensuring environmental flows, adoption of a national wetland management plan, development of water bodies and increased research to address salinity.

Water conservation is given special focus along with construction of new dams and emphasisis on subsurface dams, and also recharging the groundwater during floods.

Most importantly, the policy has documented the impacts of climate change and warns that unprecedented climate change can lead to extreme weather events adversely affecting the water resources of the country.

In this regard, the policy calls for mitigating the climatic impacts and synchronising it with the National Climate Change Policy of 2012.

To ensure adequate sharing of water resources with neighbouring countries, the policy calls for working out a mechanism for sharing of trans-boundary aquifers and joint watershed management, conducting studies to evaluate the impacts of developments in the upper catchment (India) of western rivers in the lower catchment (Pakistan) and ensuring environmental flows.

For the agriculture sector, the policy has called for pursuing the concept of `more crop per drop [of water]` along with a national plan for implementation of improved irrigation practices and legislating to ban flood irrigation across the country. The policy also calls for reforms in the agriculture sector to conserve the water resources. It also incentivises the use of marginal quality of groundwater for salt-tolerant crops, using treated sewage for non-edible crops and taking measures to enhance the water charges realistically to meet the operation and maintenance cost and ensuring long-term sustainability.

For rain-fed agriculture, the policy advocates moisture conservation and rainwater harvesting, solar pumping in shallow groundwater areas, constructing rainwater harvesting ponds and mini dams in rain-fed areas, and promoting water-efficient crops to promote sustainability.

The accelerated development of hydropower is treated as a high-priority objective, according to the NWP.

Furthermore, to recover the water that is lost while being supplied to agricultural fields, the policy proposes some of the targets for 2018-2030, which include reduction of up to 33 percent in the lost 46 MAF river flows (out of 134.8 MAF) through the lining of water courses and construction of the Diamer-Bhasha Dam, along with other dams. The policy proposes to increase at least 30 percent in the efficiency of water use through various measures.

To effectively address the looming water crisis, increased allocations in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the water sector shall be made. It must be noted that in 2017-18, the federal PSDP allocated only 3.7 percent i.e. 36.75 billion rupees for the water sector the lowest in two decades.

The NWP covers the capacity-building component comprehensively with a focus on integrated management of water resources, capacity-building of all water-related public-sector organisations and establishment of new institutions at various levels.

The policy also proposes the adoption and strengthening of National Water Council (NWC) with the Prime Minister of Pakistan as its chairman, and to have representation of ministers and officials from various ministries, private-sector experts and others.

The NWP also urges to upgrade and improve the capacity of Wapda to plan, design and undertake feasibility studies and implement hydroelectric projects.

It is proposed in the NWP to establish groundwater authorities in each province which will help to conserve groundwater.

The water policy calls effective water management in industrial uses followed by strong emphasis on groundwater conservation, which includes its monitoring and preparation of budgets, sustainable extraction and restricting over-extraction along with other measures.

The policy categorically mentions that the Constitution of Pakistan has given the provinces the right over the rivers that fall within their boundaries and also that every public or private entity has the right to this resource.

Active stakeholders` consultation and participation at all levels shall be sought and community participation to be promoted, according to the policy. The NWP urges to build sustainable infrastructure and its subsequent maintenance to conserve the water resources.

To manage water-related hazards, flood management is given due priority in the water policy, including the preparation of flood protection plans, promoting sustainable land use, floodplain mapping to restrict permanent settlements in flood-risk areas, promoting disaster risk reduction, construction of additional flood protection facilities, hill torrent management, community based flood disaster management initiatives, urban storm management, removing floodplain encroachments, drought management, addressing water logging, salinity and sea intrusion, water quality management, information management, public awareness through media, inculcating the message of water conservation in syllabi and research and development.

The policy ensures that the cost for delivering water shall be recovered and free-of-cost water shall be provided for environmental and ecological needs to maintain the ecological balance. As the population of the country has grown exponentially leading to increased water demand, the policy urges to create appropriate action plans to manage these increases.