Awaiting rain: Growers fear water shortage in the upcoming months

Floods are mostly experienced in August and if no rains take place during that time, there may be water shortage.

SUKKUR:

Tarbella Dam needs 86 feet more water to reach its full capacity of 1,550 feet while only 40 feet more water is required to fill Mangla Dam to its full capacity of 1,240 feet. River Kabul is adding 95,000 cusecs of water in River Indus but despite all this, the irrigation experts are afraid that if there isn’t enough rainfall in the catchment areas, growers might face water shortage for the Kharif crops.

Referring to the met office and flood forecasting department reports, the Sukkur Barrage control room in-charge Abdul Aziz Soomro said that there is no flood to be foreseen till the third week of July because very little or no rain is expected during this period. He also said that floods are mostly experienced in the month of August and if no rains take place during that time, there may be a water shortage for Kharif crops, which include paddy, cotton, sugarcane and others. However, since the monsoon season often stretches to September, anything can happen.

The water situation at Guddu Barrage and Sukkur Barrage till July 2010 was quite alarming and the growers of Balochistan, due to the water shortage, staged sit-in outside the office of the Sukkur Chief Engineer in mid-July. They blamed the Sindh irrigation authorities for not providing water to Balochistan according to the indent.

Soon afterwards, the overflow of Indus, which began from River Kabul, washed away everything in most of the districts of Upper Sindh and some parts of Lower Sindh and Balochistan. Heavy rainfall in the catchment areas and eastern Punjab and hill torrents coming from Koh-e-Suleman in Dera Ghazi Khan together forged a super flood, which washed away thousands of villages and other installations, rendering hundreds of thousands of the residents homeless.

According to the irrigation authorities, they can measure the flow of different rivers and pond levels of the dams but they cannot measure the quantity of hill torrents, which play havoc when they come gushing down to the plains. So far, no system has been installed to monitor and measure the quantity of the hill torrents, which always proves hazardous for the residents. However, irrigation officials were of the view that if rainfall took place in the months of August and September, then a low to medium flood may be experienced at different barrages of the country.

Below full capacity

Pond level (feet)  Current level        Full capacity          Inflow (cusecs)      Outflow(cusecs)

Tarbella Dam              1,464.34                 1,550                        39,000                   145,000

Mangla Dam         1,200.34  1,240       60,000     15,000

Water discharge (cusecs)                      

                                     Upstream              Downstream
Guddu Barrage             220,000                    163,000

Sukkur Barrage            139,000                    83,000

Kotri Barrage                41,500                      3,100

 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 7^th, 2014.