Dr. Ashraf has more than 22 years research experience in water resources development and management in arid and semi-arid areas and has a proven record of over 70 national and international research publications. During his professional career, he worked for the integrated management of water resources, particularly surface and groundwater resources in the irrigated and dry (rainfed) areas. More specifically, he worked on irrigation system design and improvement, resource conservation technologies, soil and water conservation, high efficiency irrigation systems, skimming wells, hydro-salinity, groundwater assessment, conjunctive use of surface and groundwater, irrigation scheduling, crop water requirements, land and water productivity, rainwater harvesting, supplemental irrigation, groundwater recharge, soil erosion, watershed management, waste water management etc. He has more than 70 research publications at his credit. He has vast experience of project planning, processing, presentation, dissemination, capacity building, monitoring and evaluation. He has been collaborating with national and international agencies such as United States Geological Survey (USGS), Agriculture Research Services (ARS), United Nations Children Fund (UNESCO) and United Nations Development Programme etc on various water-related issues and organized a number of national and international workshops/seminars. He has been working for provincial and national organizations such as On Farm Water Management (OFWM) Punjab and Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR). He has the opportunity to work for international organizations such as International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). He is the Editor of the journal Paddy and Water Environment.