Water availability significantly higher than last year

Published October 2, 2019
Despite a 15 per cent shortage, the country’s water availability during the current Rabi season has been estimated to be significantly higher than last year.  — Photo by Kohi Marri/File
Despite a 15 per cent shortage, the country’s water availability during the current Rabi season has been estimated to be significantly higher than last year. — Photo by Kohi Marri/File

ISLAMABAD: Despite a 15 per cent shortage, the country’s water availability during the current Rabi season has been estimated to be significantly higher than last year.

This was concluded by the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) at a meeting of its advisory committee held here on Tuesday. The meeting, presided over by Irsa Chairman Sher Zaman Khan (member for Balochistan), noted that there would have been no shortage if the country had enough storage capacity and called upon the government to build reservoirs on a war footing.

“If adequate storage capacity had been available, the surplus water of 11.65 million acre feet (MAF) released downstream Kotri during Kharif 2019 could have been stored to eliminate the expected shortage of 15pc in Rabi 2019-20, after meeting the ecological and sea intrusion needs,” Irsa said, adding that it was “unanimously agreed that additional storages should be constructed wherever feasible on the rivers”.

The committee was informed that water availability in the Rabi season would also be better than the average of last 10 years. The committee was of the opinion that the shortage could easily be overcome through better management and irrigation practices. The committee was called to chalk out the Rabi 2019-20 (Oct-March) anticipated water availability criteria.

The meeting was attended by all four members of Irsa from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Punjab and the federal government, besides representatives of the Federal Flood Commission, provinces and Water and Power Development Authority.

The committee observed that the actual Rim Station inflows of 104.82 MAF were only one per cent less than the forecast volume of 106.17 MAF. It expressed satisfaction that the actual provincial withdrawals remained at 65.23 MAF against the anticipated withdrawals of 66.80 MAF — only 2pc less. The actual system losses were 14.10 MAF as compared to the anticipation of 15.74 MAF and downstream Kotri releases were 11.65 MAF.

The committee forecast 24.14 MAF of water availability through river flows and about 10.268 MAF in storages.

Based on the Rim Station inflows plus available storage of 10.268 MAF minus the expected system losses of 2.38 MAF and minor unavoidable flow downstream Kotri, the approved availability at respective canal heads is likely to be 31.45 MAF. As such, the share of Punjab was worked out at 16.93 MAF and that of Sindh at 12.78 MAF. The share of KP was calculated at 71,000 acre feet and that of Balochistan at 1.03MAF.

The meeting noted that the likely availability of 31.44 MAF was higher than last year’s 24.76 MAF and 10-year average of 29.80 MAF. The basin-wide shortage was approved at 15pc which was significantly lower than the previous Rabi (2018-19) shortage of 32pc.

It was agreed that the projected shortages were manageable and hopefully the cropping targets for Rabi 2019-20 would be achieved be applying efficient and best water management practices. It was decided that the provinces, while remaining within the indicated shares, would submit their withdrawal plans within 15 days.

Regarding Irsa technical committee’s recommendation for carrying out studies relating to system losses, lag-times and cropping patterns due to climate change, the advisory committee decided that these would be done within a year and the terms of reference would be prepared in consultation with the provinces.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd , 2019

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