BEIJING, Feb. 11 (China Economic Net) – "In 2019, I visited Pakistan and brought back some water samples from the ground and surface water in Lahore. I and my Tsinghua team did some research on that. The results were shocking, it is not good," said Farooq Saleem Khan, environment management Ph.D. of Tsinghua University. He is now an associate professor at Yibin University and a coordinator of the Pakistan-China water treatment cooperation.

 

"Most people in Pakistan drink groundwater and the water quality is not up to the level. We already prepared the manuscript and going to publish an investigation paper on that this year." He said.

 

Farooq used to be an emergency officer of Rescue 1122 in Pakistan. At that time, he organized one free medical camp for poor people in the villages and the mountains who cannot afford normal medicine. "We found that most of the diseases there were caused b the contaminated water. That's the reason that I started to study water management."

 

"If you want to have a healthy community, you have to bring people hygienic water and food supply, then the budget on the health-related issue will be lower. Recently, Pakistan has already started to work on establishing some huge water treatment plants. But more need to be done." Farooq has done some consulting for several Chinese companies. "They are interested in investing in Pakistan and I have facilitated some of the cooperations to develop the treatment plants."

 

Farooq believes that Pakistan can learn a lot from the Chinese experience. "China has divided the river water into three categories. They have improved the related laws and regulations, and implementation is strict on the industries. At Tsinghua University, we have many research groups working together with different municipal governments. They have established monitoring stations and give online monitoring, checking the water quality every time."

 

"We need such kind of monitoring technologies," said Farooq. Although Pakistan has strict regulations about wastewater release, it is not implemented practically due to the lack of advanced monitoring stations. "Then, there should also be penalties for people who exceed the limits of waste."

 

Farooq stressed that the water treatment cooperation between Pakistan and China should be first brought to the government level. "University level cooperation is important, but it's a small level. When you involve the governments, the work will be very effective. Government and the industries should come forward and bring the advanced technologies of water treatment to Pakistan."