Karachi, the largest city in Pakistan, sits on the tip of the country near the Arabian Sea. Despite the city's proximity to water, the inhabitants of one of the largest cities in the world are facing a major water insecurity problem. For the 20 million people that live in Karachi, there is only one source of freshwater available through the current water utility, Karachi Water and Sewage Board. Household water use in Karachi is not metered, so the water bill that each household receives is not based on how much water they use. Instead, households pay a flat rate based on the size of their house. This type of pricing approach is both inefficient and inequitable. It is inefficient because it doesn't encourage households to conserve water; it is inequitable because the piped water rates are orders of magnitude lower than non-piped rates, and the uniform rates don’t account for the varying ability to pay across households. This pricing approach prevents the water utility from raising sufficient revenue and improving service delivery to Karachi's residents.

 The Karachi Water Project (KWP), headed by my mentor Professor Hassaan Furqan Khan, aims to improve water management in Karachi through technological and policy-based solutions. My research project will consist of designing and testing different water pricing simulations and economic models to determine the most effective and sustainable water pricing strategies in Karachi. Previous studies as part of the KWP have gathered data on how much Karachi’s citizens are paying for water within the city seasonally and their relative consumption of water dependent on income, family size, etc. Leveraging these data sets and previously published water, sanitation, and hygiene literature, I plan to build both qualitative and quantitative models which can inform policy makers and add to the scarce scientific literature on Karachi’s water system. 

Through this research project, I hope to expand my worldview and learn more about new cultures through my research and methodology. The water crisis facing Karachi is multi-faceted and there are political, cultural, and economic implications facing the region because of this ongoing issue. I am keen to research Karachi’s water management system through the eyes of an environmentalist searching for the most sustainable way to deliver water to Karachi households. Similarly, I will think like an economist, researching the most effective pricing models and WASH interventions to decrease the amount of non-revenue water KWSB supplies and increase the amount of safe water piped to ensure that inequities can be reduced for citizens across Karachi.