Across water-scarce regions, access to safe and reliable water is not merely an environmental concern; it is a determinant of health, social stability, and economic continuity. In Pakistan’s Tharparkar district – an arid desert region – communities have historically relied on deep wells, seasonal rainfall, and tanker deliveries for water, all of which are subject to variability and quality risk. 

Any large industrial activity introduced into such a landscape immediately intersects with local water concerns. The question is not whether water will be affected, but how risks are identified, governed, and mitigated, and whether those mechanisms are credible to affected stakeholders. 

Despite this challenging backdrop, SECMC was able to achieve Gold certification for its Tharparkar mining operations under the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) Standard – a globally recognised, independently audited framework emphasising catchment-level outcomes. This is the first instance globally of a mining site reaching this level. 

SECMC’s Imran Aslam will be sharing the details of this groundbreaking case study at Water in Mining Global Summit 2026. In the meantime, read on to discover some of the key learnings from the project. 

Project complexities 

The mining operation in question is located above coal seams bounded by deep saline aquifers, which means that continuous depressurisation is required to maintain geotechnical safety. The extracted groundwater has high total dissolved solids (TDS) and is unsuitable for human consumption directly. 

While this saline water is not used by surrounding communities, its abstraction and disposal nonetheless create perceived and actual risks: potential impacts on freshwater aquifers, concerns over contamination pathways, and uncertainty regarding long-term hydrological effects. These issues underscore a broader reality – water risk is as much social and institutional as it is technical. 

What the AWS Framework entails 

Rather than relying solely on internal environmental management systems, the site decided to subject its water management practices to the AWS Standard. This requires demonstrable performance across five ‘domains’: water governance, sustainable water balance, water quality protection, protection of water-related ecosystems, and access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). 

The process involves external audits, stakeholder engagement, and public disclosure – features intended to reduce information asymmetry between operators, regulators, and communities. 

The certification journey for the site began with an extensive independent audit covering abstraction volumes, water flows, quality monitoring, disposal practices, worker facilities, and community interactions. While existing controls were identified, auditors highlighted deficiencies in measurement accuracy, structural consistency, and lack of local standards for mining effluent. 

Making adjustments 

In response to the audit, key systems-level adjustments were put in place at the site: 

• Flow meters were installed at critical abstraction, reuse, and discharge points, enabling the development of a formal, regularly updated water balance. This transition from estimation to measurement proved foundational for informed decision-making. 
• Monitoring regimes were expanded beyond basic parameters to align with international benchmarks. Testing protocols were formalised in coordination with regulators, improving both technical robustness and regulatory confidence. 
• Concerns regarding nearby wells and livestock water sources were addressed through regular testing by independent laboratories, with results shared directly with local representatives. Consultation processes became structured rather than ad hoc. 
• Access to drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities within the operation was upgraded and incorporated into routine safety audits, reinforcing the linkage between water stewardship and occupational health. 

These changes represented a shift from operational water management to governed water stewardship, though not without cost, complexity, or institutional effort.  

In 2025, following a year-long assessment and corrective-action process, the site achieved its AWS Gold certification. 

Addressing challenges 

Meeting all five of the AWS domains naturally came with challenges – the most significant of which fell under good water governance. 

The technical side of water management is difficult, but governance proved to be harder because it requires thinking beyond the site boundary. SECMC operates a large open-pit coal mine in a highly water-stressed and groundwater-dependent region. Achieving AWS Gold was therefore not just about demonstrating good internal controls – it was about showing that there was a credible, transparent, and collaborative water stewardship system in place. 

This necessitated the building of a governance model that combined strong internal water accounting and monitoring, structured stakeholder engagement, regulatory alignment, and transparent communication around mine dewatering and water reuse. 

One specific challenge was the regulatory context. Pakistan has environmental quality standards, but there was no detailed, mine-specific technical protocol for open-pit dewatering effluent monitoring encompassing factors like parameter selection, monitoring frequency, and performance benchmarks. Instead of treating this as a limitation, the site used it as an opportunity to strengthen its governance framework. 

Working proactively with the provincial regulator, the site aligned its monitoring regime with internationally recognised practices, including US EPA 40 CFR Part 434 principles for coal mining effluent. This helped to formalise a more structured framework with defined parameters, frequencies, reporting, and thresholds. 

For this project, AWS Gold turned out to be less about proving that the site could manage water inside the mine fence, and more about proving it could govern water responsibly in a shared and water-stressed catchment. 

Exploring innovation 

An interesting dimension of the project was the productive reuse of saline groundwater. This required a shift in mindset from ‘saline mine water as a disposal challenge’ to ‘saline water as a managed resource’. 

SECMC collaborated with researchers from the Xinjiang Institute of Geography and Ecology (Chinese Academy of Sciences) to scientifically evaluate how saline mine dewatering water could be reused under arid desert conditions, including in farming. This was not a trial-and-error effort – it was a structured research programme designed to generate evidence and create transferable models. 

The work focused on: 

• Testing salt tolerance of halophytes and fodder crops 
• Developing growth prediction models for saline irrigation 
• Identifying soil amendment strategies (such as compost/manure) to improve crop resilience 
• Establishing salinity threshold benchmarks for sustainable growth 

A key takeaway from the research was that saline mine water – under controlled conditions – can support selected crops, especially when paired with proper soil conditioning. In other words, the water is not ‘bad water’ – it just requires the right agronomy and management. 

Learning lessons 

Importantly, this case study reveals five transferable learnings for other projects in arid parts of the world: 

1. Start with governance, not just infrastructure: Many sites focus first on treatment plants or monitoring hardware. Those are important, but the real foundation is built on who owns water decisions, how data is reviewed, how stakeholders are engaged, and how risks are escalated. Without governance, technical solutions remain fragmented.
2. Build a water balance you can defend: A credible, site-wide water balance was essential for the project. It helped SECMC to make better operational decisions, engage regulators with confidence, and explain its approach transparently to stakeholders. If you cannot explain your water balance clearly, you cannot claim stewardship. 
3. Don’t wait for perfect regulation to act: In our context, mine-specific dewatering monitoring protocols were not fully defined. Instead of waiting, SECMC adopted international best practice and worked with regulators to create a more robust framework. That approach is transferable to many emerging-market contexts. 
4. Treat ‘difficult water’ as an innovation opportunity: Saline water is often viewed as a liability. We found that with the right science and controls, it can become a resource for saline agriculture, aquaculture, and broader stewardship innovation. This is highly relevant for other arid-region mines globally. 
5. AWS Gold is a culture shift, not just a certification: The certification process strengthened internal discipline and cross-functional alignment. It changed how teams think about water – from compliance to stewardship. 

Perhaps the biggest takeaway of all from SECMC’s AWS journey, however, is that water stewardship in a water-stressed mining context must be treated as a system, not a single project.  

Technology alone is not enough. Success for this project came from integrating governance, science, operations, and community engagement into one framework. 

This article was submitted by SECMC and edited by the Water in Mining team.