Overpopulation and dropping water table increase water stress and food insecurity across the Pakistani province.
Every morning in Quetta, before the sun clears the jagged peaks of the Sulaiman Mountains, a ritual of anxiety begins. It starts with the hollow, metallic clink of a dry tap. For thousands of households, this sound is the starting gun for a daily race for survival. With it echo the neighbourhoods with one question: “Will water come today?”
In the sprawling neighbourhoods of the provincial capital, families ration every drop, calculating whether a litre of water should be used for cooking a meal or washing a child’s face.
What was once a seasonal inconvenience has hardened into a defining feature of life in Balochistan. This quiet crisis is unfolding alongside a demographic explosion that threatens to overwhelm the province’s fragile ecology.
