Water Management to remove wastage of water and revolutionize Irrigated Agriculture

Pakistan is an agricultural country. Its economy, and food production depends on irrigated agriculture. There is therefore need to remove scarcity of water by the scientific use of land and water. Pakistan suffers scarcity of water due to sever mismanagement, besides the problems of salinity and sodicity of land. The only remedy to remove wastage of water in canal irrigation system and by way of flood control is through Integrated Comprehensive Water Management by the efficient use of the available water. We cannot create water but can use the available water efficiently to remove its scarcity as far as possible.

 There is therefore dire need to modernize the 150 years old, obsolete, highly wasteful and incompatible canal irrigation system and its rigid flow, so as to supply water to crops on the basis of crop consumptive use of water, as and when required in proper dozes.

There is need to tackle all problems of irrigated agriculture by Integrated Comprehensive Water Management to save wastage of water, remove its shortage, remove and control salinity of land, implementing watershed management controlling silt that choke reservoirs, control floods and build mega dams to store water that goes waste to sea. This is necessary to safeguard and further develop irrigated agriculture to produce food for the rapidly growing population.

 The obsolete irrigation system vitally requires modernizing it. It urgently requires to provide the missing drainage system that has caused salinity, sodicity and water logging in more than 60% of the irrigated area to various degrees. There is need to build water conservation structures, provide water efficient and modern conveyance, distribution, regulation, and measurement system. It is necessary to adopt efficient water application methods, and supply water on crop consumptive use basis.

In short, the dire need is to undertake “Integrated Comprehensive Water Management with all its components true to its technical definition to avoid wastage of water. The major problems to tackle, and to save water are;

Modernization of the 150 years old, obsolete, seeping and highly wasteful canal irrigation system with high “seepage losses and system losses” of about 50% of the inflow into the canal system. The wastage amounts to about 45 maf to 50 maf.

The existing canal irrigation system and its rigid flow has become incompatible with the cropping pattern and in meeting the crop water needs as per their consumptive use as and when required in proper dozes.

There is need to replace wasteful, unscientific and time-based “Warabandi” method of the supply of water by gravity flow or by flooding of lands, by the water efficient sprinkler and drip irrigation methods. This is necessary to meet water needs of crops as per their consumptive use.

There is need to conserve floodwater going waste to sea, due to absence of dams and barrages on the Indus. The Indus is the only river where mega dam sites are available. Jehlum, Chinab, Ravi and Kabul Rivers have no dam sites in Pakistan.

The provinces should avoid huge theft of water and losses of water of about 16 maf between Chashma to Kotri reach of the Indus. IRSA reported that 50,000 cusecs of water is lost in this reach. The provinces should be warned to watch it and save this loss to avoid inter-provincial water disputes. 

The Government should take serious measures to avoid rapid loss of storage water by silting of dams as no watershed management measures are taken. Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma have lost about 6.6 maf of water in storage capacity with in 36 years.

The Indus River’s “meandering waterway” is about 14 miles wide. At places, it is 32 KM wide. It wastes a lot of water in its vast waterway as well as land in a 14 miles wide meandering bed. It needs river channelization to reduce waterway from 14 miles width to only 4500 feet or a little more. The reduced waterway would reduce seepage and evaporation losses besides reclaiming millions of acres of land along the banks of the river throughout its length.

Similarly, heavy seepage and evaporation losses take place from the network of unlined main canals, distributaries, minors and watercourses. It needs modernization to save water. There is need to replace watercourses by pipe supply to avoid theft, seepage and evaporation losses.

Increasing population would require greater water requirements for agricultural development, industrial uses, besides domestic needs. We cannot create fresh water but can save wastage.

India has illegally build dams, holding Pakistan’s share of water, and diverting flows on all rivers and their tributaries in a network to irrigate Rajisthan. India has created huge dead storage and live storage in occupied Kashmir. This has resulted in reduced flow to Pakistan by diverting its share of water. It adversely affects Rabi and early Kharif crops and food production in the Indus basin irrigation system.

Global warming and climate change has also reduced river flows. It will upset rivers flow, increase it or decrease, create flood or droughts. This will upset irrigated agriculture. Therefore, storage dams are required to regulate rivers flow by building dams and barrages where-ever possible.

There is dire need to build many dams and barrages specifically on the Indus to conserve water, as there are no dam sites on all other mega rivers.

There is need for rainwater harvesting to preserve water and supplement groundwater by building small, medium and big dams on nullahs, streams, rivers and control hill torrents besides building barrages on all major rivers.

Build the missing surface and sub-surface tile drainage to reclaim land from salinity, sodicity, and water logging and improve lands under irrigation system to produce food.

The solution to all the above problems that involves huge wastage of water lie, in “Integrated Comprehensive Water Management” (ICWM), the technical definition of which is as follows:-

Definition of Water Management

“Water Management is defined as the combined processes of storage, diversion, conveyance, regulation, measurement, distribution and application of the rational amount of water at proper time and removal of excess water from the farms to promote increased production economically in conjunction with improvement of agricultural practice and institutional arrangement”.

The definition of water management shows that it is a combined process of about a dozen of its components that are urgently required to be implemented to avoid huge wastage of water from canal irrigation system and from floods going waste to sea. Therefore, there is a need to implement ICWM true to its technical definition. This is necessary to achieve maximum water availability and efficiency of water use. Most engineers do not know the vital components of ICWM. Major water issues to be set right are briefly pointed out below;

Modernization of the 150 years old, obsolete, highly wasteful canal irrigation system

The most important of all issues is to avoid heavy losses of water due to “seepage and system wastage” from the canal irrigation system that is 150 years old, and has become obsolete. Out of the 105 maf of water diverted into the canal irrigation system, about 50% of water (about 50 maf) is wasted. Besides this, the waste flow becomes saline groundwater drainage effluent, creating salinity and sodicity problems. Wasting 50 maf of water, when it is scarce, is crime against public interest. This water, if saved is enough to irrigate 14 million acres of new barren land by flooding method, and double this amount by sprinkler and drip irrigation methods.

The wasteful and unscientific “Warabandi” method of the supply of water to land irrespective of crop grown for fix duration of time, for a given land area, must be replaced by the supply of water as per crop consumptive use as and when required.

As there are no dams on the Indus to control floods that go waste to sea, therefore huge quantity of water is lost to sea as floodwater waste. This flow varies very widely as the Indus is highly erratic river with heavy silt flow. The flow of Indus shall have to be controlled and regulated by dams to sustain irrigation system. Watershed management is required to control silt to increase the life of reservoirs.  

Not only this, silt flow shall have to be controlled by wise selection of dam sites giving priority to the capacity-inflow ratio otherwise all dams shall silt up in rapid succession thereby losing all storage sites on the Indus. Indus is the only River of Pakistan that serves as its lifeline. Therefore, wrong site selection of dams on the Indus would destroy its storage potential. There are no dam sites on Jehlum, Chinab, Ravi, and Kabul River in Pakistan. Therefore, barrages may be built on these rivers.

Loss of 50,000 cusecs of water on the Indus due to theft, and misuse between Chashma to Kotri portion

This is a serious matter for this huge loss that needs to be prevented and the thieves punished. The major loss by theft is due to direct pumping and by means of tube wells installed near the Indus bank that draws Indus River water through the sub-soil extraction. The provinces should take notice of it.

 The other reason for the loss of Indus water is its extraordinary 14 miles wide meandering width, long distance and high temperature. The river needs channelization to reduce its waterway by building several barrages. This will remove meanders by silt deposition, shorten river length though little, increase velocity of flow and reclaim millions of acres of Government land on both banks of the Indus due to silt deposition. Please study Chashma barrage silting on its upstream and the reclamation of land due to silting. This will help channelizing the Indus.

Rapid silting of reservoirs due to lack of watershed management and ignoring capacity-inflow ratio resulting in loss of 6.6 maf of storage in 36 years

As the Indus River water is full of sediment load due to heavy soil erosion from Skardu valley, therefore dam site selection on the basis of capacity-inflow ratio is most vital so that the reservoir has a very long life span. This is the basic principle for the selection of Dams.

 We must make efforts to select a dam site where the inflow is less than the storage capacity of the reservoir. On this principle, Katzarah is a unique dam site on the Indus. Kalabagh and Tarbela are the lowest priority dam sites as the inflow is many times more than the capacity of the reservoir. These will therefore rapidly silt up. One must learn from the rapid silting of Tarbela Reservoir in planning future reservoirs on the Indus.

India violates Indus Waters Treaty, usurps Pakistan’s water, withholds millions of acre feet of water, uses water as a weapon to cause famine in Pakistan a crime against humanity

India is building dozens of dams on all the six rivers and their tributaries that originate from occupied Kashmir a disputed territory in shear violation of the Indus Waters Treaty. The main objective of India is to store water to its optimum limit utilizing full rivers slope potentials and use water as a weapon to destroy the Indus basin canal irrigation system in Pakistan, the largest contiguous canal irrigation system in the world.

 India has so far created about 15 maf of dead storage and about 15 maf of live storage. India has already built 475 feet high Baglihar Dam. The flow of Chinab River has dropped from 21 maf to 14 maf after the construction of Baglihar Dam. India is now building Barsar Dam with a height of 827 feet the largest dam in the sub-continent though occupied Kashmir is a disputed territory. This will further reduce Chinab flow, though under the Treaty Jehlum and Chinab Rivers belong to Pakistan.

India is allowed to generate hydropower on run-of-the-river and not to create huge live storage as that is in violation of the Treaty. All this means that India is igniting terrorism in Pakistan that may frenziedly lead to nuclear war if India forces famine on Pakistan. The world may take notice and expedite the implementation of the 60 years old UN resolution on Kashmir. The UN may take notice of the wrong partition of the sub-continent that created water dispute between the two neighbors. Nuclear conflict must be avoided to protect the earth’s environment and the destruction of human race. A hungry and dying man can do anything. The dispute requires peaceful settlement.

Global warming, glaciers melting and climate change

Global warming is inevitable. What we can do is to mitigate its impact by building mega dams, reservoirs, barrages, and create wet lands and grow forest where possible. It is highly essential to raise artificial forests on the sides of water reservoirs and in irrigated areas. It is necessary to reduce injurious gases from vehicles, factories and from burning fossil fuel. At one stage, rivers discharges would substantially reduce and in another stage river discharges would increase due to glaciers melting. Construction of dams are essentially required for all stages. Dams are required for rainwater harvesting. Irrigation system essentially requires dams to regulate the erratic flows of rivers. Dams are required for clean production of hydropower. Dams are required to implement Water Accord and end inter-provincial water dispute. Dams are required to control super floods and avoid loss of human life and billions of dollars loss to property

Providing the missing drainage system, a component of water management to save lands from salinity, sodicity and water logging.

Land and water are the basic inputs of agriculture. Land is becoming diseased due to the absence of surface and sub-surface tile drainage, a component of water management. Land has become saline and saline-sodic. Agriculture would suffer and food crisis would arise if salinity from land is not removed and controlled. Wastage of water is to be saved by water management and diseased land corrected by providing surface and sub-surface tile drainage to control salinity and to develop agriculture to produce food. Pakistan needs food for its expanding population and it needs water and healthy land to produce food. Therefore, water management and the sub-surface tile drainage that is its missing component are required to be implemented to achieve the objectives.      

Dams on the Indus would generate about 40,000 MW of cheap and environment friendly hydropower that would be used in running sprinkler and drip irrigation besides other uses. Cheap hydropower generation is a component of water management as higher lands can only be irrigated by lifting water that requires hydropower. Similarly, sprinkler and drip irrigation require pressure pumps that needs hydropower.