Agriculture sector may face water shortage in Rabi season

LAHORE: Pakistan’s agriculture sector is likely to face 15 percent water shortage in this year’s winter crop season starting from 1 October despite that the country has witnessed a wet year with record river flows, official sources said on Tuesday.
The Advisory Committee of Indus River System Authority (IRSA) will review the water availability situation in its meeting today (Wednesday) in Islamabad.
The sources said water availability in Rabi (winter crops) season will be less than the normal flows keeping in view depleting water reservoirs due to high water demand in the late Kharif (summer crops) season and less-than-expected inflows in rivers.
The sources, however, said river flows in Kharif (April-September) this year was at a record level due to better hydrological and climatic conditions.
Owing to better flows, irrigation requirements are comfortably met in Kharif season as well as a mammoth 36.23 million acres feet (MAF) of water was released into sea downstream Kotri.
The drained volume of water was far much above the 30 MAF average yearly outflows downstream Kotri.
“Just to compare the huge quantity of this Kharif’s excessive water, which stands at 36 MAF, the total water storage capacity of the country presently stands at about 14 MAF in the shape of Mangla and Tarbela dams and Chashma Barrage,” a source said.
Better river flows enabled filling of Tarbela dam to a maximum capacity on August 09, 2015 and Mangla dam on August 22.
However, because of extreme volatility in river flows, which is attributed to climate change, both the water reservoirs started to deplete fast. By September 29, water in Tarbela dam was reduced to 4.01 MAF against maximum storage of 6.36 MAF. Similarly, water in Mangla dam decreased to 6.35 MAF against its maximum storage level of 7.37 MAF.
Present stored water in dams is about 2.5 MAF less if compared with corresponding period of the last year, said sources.
The water availability situation would have been even worse, had Mangla Raising Dam not been completed, sources said.
“The raised Mangla provided more than two million acre feet of additional water, virtually rescuing us from about 25 percent shortage of water against the normal flows,” a source said.
Official sources said high flows in rivers are a disadvantage. They cause floods the country has no proper storage capacity.
“Had we been able to store 10-15 MAF more water in new dams, we would have been averted flood losses as well as water shortage in crucial Rabi seasons for good,” said an official.
The sources said Rabi is an important sowing season as wheat, the main staple food in the country, is sown in this season.
“Though the predicted water shortage in Rabi is manageable, we need to have more water storage capacity in order to increase cultivable area of the country to meet the food requirement of burgeoning population,” said the official.