CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Water is perhaps the single most important substance on earth. It forms the basis for life . Organisms, including man, can only survive if there is an adequate supply of water available. Although 98% of the earth’s water is sea water, humans are most concerned with the remaining 2% of fresh water that supports life on earth. In the last several hundred years’ man has increasingly impacted on both the distribution and the quality of fresh water. Peters Bricker Kennedy (1996)
Water shortage is not a new problem. Human beings have always been trying to overcome this problem through various methods. They have been using different techniques and strategies. The water shortage has its root cause in different cultural activities of human societies. Different societies had been using their indigenous knowledge system to solve the problem of water shortage (Adams, 2005).
In a recent workshop titled ‘framing responses’ organized by Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD). Experts of workshop concluded that Pakistan has done nothing to store water in past forty five years. Experts were also of the opinion that countries in the south Asia are committed to store water but Pakistani authorities are busy in making reports and not translating them into action. (Dawn-2012)
Water is an essential resource for conservation of human health, agricultural invention and socio-economic progress in the rural emerging economies that mark much of the worldwide south. How these various demands on water come together in particular places to distribute the pressure of water shortage among people and ecosystem is highly dependent on the local socio-political, economic and environmental conditions. Within the same area, people of different social positions including men, women, farmers and herders, foresters may experience different consequences as a