KARACHI, Sept 5: Environment, water and biodiversity experts and civil society leaders pointing out serious flaws in the draft reports of two downstream Kotri Barrage studies, said that the reports failed to achieve their basic objective of identifying water requirement for the Indus delta region.

These views were articulated in the recommendations adopted in the national consultative workshop on ‘Downstream Kotri Studies’, which was jointly organized by the Participatory Development Initiatives and Actionaid Pakistan on Monday.

They observed that if the flaws in these studies (i.e. study on water escapades to check seawater intrusion and study on water escapades to address environmental concerns) being carried out as per Para-7 of the Water Accord 1991 were not removed they would not serve the basic purpose of ascertaining the need of Indus flows downstream Kotri Barrage to prevent sea intrusion and degradation of environment.

Referring to Para-7 of the water accord which suggests that ‘studies would be undertaken to establish the minimal escapades needs of downstream Kotri’, the experts held that seawater intrusion included delta land erosion, land surface salinity, salinity of groundwater aquifers and submerging of delta land during high sea tides. However, they pointed out that the study was confined to examining the riverbed salinity while ignoring all other aspects of sea intrusion.

Experts pointed out that the study objective was to look into the sea intrusion problem in the whole delta region downstream Kotri Barrage, however, the consultants had confined their work to only riverbed and instead of taking the delta as model they had taken riverbed as model to check the salinity.

No survey had been conducted with regard to other forms of seawater intrusion including agriculture land erosion to sea, and surface salinity on agriculture lands of many tehsils of Thatta and Badin districts. Besides, there was no field survey shown to discuss the issue.

They were of the view that the consultants had tried to base their study methodology and analysis on the seawater intrusion definition of the Unesco. It had been done despite the fact that Unesco definition was for “seawater intrusion in the riverbeds” and not for sea intrusion in any delta land as was the case of Indus Delta downstream Kotri Barrage. Therefore, confining the study methodology and analysis on Unesco definition was inadequate for studying Indus Delta sea intrusion problem.   The study, instead of ascertaining flow requirement of downstream Kotri Barrage, had given alternative suggestions, majority of which were inapplicable in case of Indus River and Delta.

Study on water escapades downstream Kotri Barrage to address environmental concerns was seriously missing the primary data, field observation as well as the professional conclusions of the consultants themselves. The study had deviated from its basic objective of ascertaining the water needs downstream Kotri Barrage to address the environmental issue as no conclusions had been made in this regard. On the contrary, the consultants had given emphasis on the alternatives to give the message to the millions of the local communities of Indus delta to accept living the present conditions of degradation.      The post Kotri Barrage photographs of the area have not been provided to the consultants by some agencies declaring them as ‘restricted’. The federal government should ensure that these photographs were provided to the consultants for further deep analysis and comparison of the present day and pre-Kotri barrage status of the land, they said.     According to the experts, the Indus flow needs for the survival of mangroves, fisheries, fauna and flora had not been ascertained in the study. Although water needs for human consumption was part of the scope of the work, however the study had no separate study/ chapter on this issue, they said.

Among others, Naseer Memon, Nisar Afandi, Abdul Majeed Qazi, Sassui Palejo, M.H. Panwhar, Nazeer Ahmad Memon, Mohammad Khan Memon and Azhar Lashari participated in the workshop.