HYDERABAD: With the Indus River receiving increased flows due to different factors including rise in temperature in upper reaches, torrential rains and eastern river flows,

Guddu barrage records medium flood on Wednesday evening followed by low flood at Sukkur barrage and normal flows at Kotri barrage.

Guddu barrage recorded a flow of 358,308 cusecs upstream and 355,299 cusecs downstream at 6pm Wednesday. At 6am up and downstream flows remained 295,662 cusecs.

Tarbela dam on which Sindh largely depends for its water needs recorded an inflow of 260,100 cusecs on July 20 which increased to over 311,000 on July 23. On July 25 the dam had inflow of 335,600 cusecs and a flow of 301,300 cusecs was released from the dam downstream. The dam’s storage level stood at 1531.41 at 6pm Wednesday.

Sindh irrigation authorities had closed all canals originating from the three barrages and only left Nara Canal operational in order to feed Chotiari reservoir in Sanghar. “Now all canals have been opened again,” said Abdul Aziz Soomro, Sukkur barrage control room in charge.

He said that around 60,000 to 70,000 cusecs flow of eastern rivers were adding to Indus’s flows, which would touch around 450,000 cusecs mark at the most.

Sukkur barrage feeds large parts of Sindh with its seven major canals on right and left of the river. These canals remained closed for 48 hours.

The medium flood would pass through Sukkur barrage in next couple of days. Currently, Sukkur barrage recorded a flow of 235,310 cusecs upstream and 228,810 cusecs downstream.

Kotri barrage had normal flows at the moment but these would increase in the days to come after Sukkur downstream flows started reaching there.

According to Irsa spokesman Khalid Rana, Indus was indeed having increased flows. These are due to the fact that Tarbela is having a storage of 1510 currently, he informed.

“When [Tarbela] dam has a level of 1510 only one foot flows per day storage is recommended as per Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on a daily basis and it is being adhered to,” he said.

He explained that the increase in the river was largely due to higher temperatures in catchment areas augmented by spells of rainfall. “This collectively increased flows in Indus and Kabul river and were further supported by water flows in eastern rivers — Ravi and Sutlej downstream Panjnad,” he said. He did not agree with the view that it was glacial lake outbursts flood.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2023