Quest for plan to cope with drought

A view of the Rawal Dam spillways (above) as the water level decreases due to a prolonged dry spell. Water storage in two dams – Mangla and Tarbela – is said to indicate a situation similar to the drought year of 2002

With river flows down by 21 per cent and water storage having declined by 34 per cent over the past year, the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) has sought details of an advisory of the meteorological department forecasting emerging agricultural drought conditions over the next six months. Irsa sources told DAWN on Sunday that total water flows in the country’s four major rivers had declined by about 10,000 cusecs to 37,000 cusecs, compared with 47,000 cusecs last year. The sources said the total storage in two major reservoirs – Tarbela and Mangla – stood at about 1.5 million acre feet (MAF) on Jan 23, compared with 2.26 MAF last year, down by about 34 per cent.The sources said that Irsa was convening a meeting of its advisory committee on Feb 1 to prepare a revised water management plan for the remaining period of the current cropping season and put in place a future course of action to cope with the water shortage.

The sources said the water availability was better last year and yet Irsa had to close down Chashma-Jhelum and Taunsa-Punjnad canals in February and March to overcome shortage. “The water availability situation is much worse this year and would need drastic water management steps to overcome the crisis-like situation,” an Irsa official said. He said that Irsa did not agree to the Met department’s drought forecasts and had sought rationale behind the calculations. He said Irsa had estimated an overall water shortage of about 33 to 34 per cent this year against earlier estimates of 30 per cent, but Met department’s 40 per cent shortage estimates appeared to be on the higher side.

In a fresh advisory on weather conditions, the Meteorological Department has said that the country has already crossed two stages of drought - meteorological and hydrological drought – and was now entering the emerging agricultural drought stages, resulting in crop failures in barani areas and drought conditions in irrigated plains.

According to the Director General of Pakistan Met Department, Dr Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, “most parts of the country are experiencing extremely dry conditions mainly due to the prevailing El-Nino conditions in the Pacific Ocean”. The El-Nino conditions which developed in June last year and reduced Pakistan’s monsoon rainfall by about 30 per cent, were likely to continue till next summer, he said.

Dr Chaudhry said that meteorological drought occurred when rainfall was fell 40 per cent less than expected in any area for an extended period – a stage already surpassed because most parts of the country were under severe meteorological drought conditions as no appreciable rainfall has occurred during the last four months.

The second stage, hydrological drought, was already being experienced because there was a sustained deficit in surface runoff below normal conditions as the availability of surface water in major reservoirs had aggravated due to 30 per cent below normal rains during monsoon and persistent long dry spell afterward and no significant improvements was expected in the reservoirs during coming weeks.He said that the country was entering the third stage of emerging agricultural drought which occurred when rainfall amount and distribution, soil water reserves and evaporation losses combined to start affecting crops. He said water storage in two dams – Mangla and Tarbela – when compared with the 10-year average data indicated the situation was similar to the drought year of 2002.