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Cycle 4 (2015 Deadline)
Enhanced engagement in research on the Kabul River basin (EKaRB)
PI: Muhammad Azeem Ali Shah (a.shah@cgiar.org), International Water Management Institute
U.S. Partner: Lauren Hay, United States Geological survey
Project Dates: November 2015 - April 2019
Project Overview
The Indus river system originates in the Himalayas in northern Pakistan, flows across three provinces, and meets the Arabian Sea at its southern end. It has many tributaries that contribute to its flow, and one of its most important is the Kabul River system, which contributes almost 19 MAF of water at Attock annually (IUCN, 2013). Historical data from 1937 through 2008 show a considerable decrease in annual flows in the Kabul river system, from 28 to 19 MAF. The possible reasons could be climatic variability, persistent drought, or enhanced use of water in Afghanistan. The Kabul river basin (KRB) has its unique geographical importance as it originates from Pakistan, enters Afghanistan and then comes back to Pakistan. In that sense Pakistan and Afghanistan are both upper and lower riparian states. Its tributaries—namely Bara, Konar, and Swat—originate in Pakistan. These contribute to the flows of KRB, which covers 348 miles in Afghanistan and then enters Pakistan to join the Indus River at Attock. It is in the interest of both Afghanistan and Pakistan to have evidence-based knowledge on the variability in flows of KRB and future impacts of climate change.
The lead institute on this project, IMWI, has partnered with the National Centre of Excellence in Geology in Peshawar, with the U.S. Government-supported partner being the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). In addition, IWMI has made contacts with the Afghan Ministry of Energy and Water, which has shown keen interest in the project idea has indicated that Kabul University may become involved. The project researchers will investigate the impact of climate change on the highly varying flows of KRB, where the ratio between lowest and highest annual flows is 1:3 (IUCN, 2013). Afghanistan has planned multiple storage facilities on KRB for irrigation and power generation purposes, and these will directly impact supplies of water to the Indus river basin. This could result in potential transboundary water conflicts in the absence of any treaty between the two riparian states. In order to facilitate any meaningful negotiation between the two states, the first step is to develop a scientific repository of evidence based research on KRB that provides insights into future water resource development scenarios in Afghanistan with and without climate change impacts. Pakistan’s economy is heavily dependent on its agricultural produce, with about 70% of its population earning a living through agriculture. Because surface water from rivers is a key input to agriculture, any uncertainty in future water supplies will directly affect the economy of Pakistan and increase poverty. On the Afghan side, the project aims to contribute to the important goal of sustainable agriculture-led economic growth. This will be achieved by informing Afghan policy makers through the dissemination of project findings about the impact of climate change on the variability of flows in KRB and the need to adapt to the changing climate patterns.
Final Summary of Project Activities
Participants of a national media dialogue event wherein media outlets were introduced to the project and its impact (photo courtesy of Azeem Shah). |
IWMI had never worked in Afghanistan and does not have a branch office there. The PEER project was the first opportunity where IWMI decided to carry out research and develop its portfolio of research on the Kabul River Basin. The first challenge was the paucity of data. Hence it was decided that IWMI will take lead and develop an online data repository which will not only benefit IWMI researchers but also researchers from different regions working on this topic. As a result, Kabul River Basin Knowledge platform and a Decision Support System (DSS) was developed. The online interface developed was made Live during the Indus Basin Knowledge Forum held in Colombo during the first week of July 2017. The Kabul River Basin Geodatabase is a valuable resource with a huge repository of GIS data which is available open source to all the researchers and policy-makers.. The Kabul River Basin decision support tool includes two key change analyses considering the fragilities faced in the basin. These include Flood Hazard Mapping and the Landslide Susceptibility analysis. Since the development of these online interfaces, IWMI has received many queries and quite a lot of researchers have benefitted from this open-source data.
There were two Models developed exclusively for the Kabul River Basin. First model was HEC-GeoHMS. In this model, the future climate change scenarios were used to determine the impact on mean and peak flows of the Kabul River. Results show that there is slight decrease in mean and peak flows as reported in the results. Moreover, flood frequency analysis under the climate change scenarios was also carried out. . It was observed that frequent floods of ARI 5, 10 and 20 years were less sensitive to climate change as compared to extreme floods of ARI 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1000 years. The flow of 5-year flood have decreased from 1430 m3/s to 1390 m3/s under all the climate change scenarios. The decrease in flows continues and maximum decrease is observed in 1000-year flood where flow decreased from 2190 m3/s to 2000 m3/s. This observation indicates that floods with lower peaks will occur when the climate changes in the KRB continues over the period of century.
The second model for the Kabul River Basin was developed using the WEAP modeling platform. We developed typical water supply and demand scenarios which were tested by using the WEAP model for the Kabul River Basin. The total water demand, the total unmet demand, and changes in river flow on both sides of Afghanistan and Pakistan and in the river basin as whole were assessed using the model.Trainings on flow measurement using current meters and Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) were carried out for professionals and academia.
A comprehensive analysis of laws regulating the flow of water on both sides of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan was also carried out. Moreover, a proposed way forward for tackling this issue of sharing the resource of Kabul River Basin has been submitted in Journal of Political Geography for publication and larger dissemination.
IWMI organized for the first time in Afghanistan a National media dialogue to sensitize the journalist community on issues related to water and transboundary water challenges with support from the PEER project. The research undertaken in this project has been shared at various national and international forums through invited talks and presentations. The USAID local mission in Pakistan has been kept in the loop throughout the project and as a result of this IWMI has been able to secure a substantial grant from USAID to take this work forward for the next 5 years. We believe this has been one of the biggest achievement of this project. This will provide us the platform to engage more researchers and practitioners from both sides of the border in the transboundary issues of mutual interest.
Kabul River Basin Database
Hazard Mapping and the Landslide Susceptibility Interface
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