Transboundary Water Resources in Afghanistan: Climate Change and Land-Use Implications

Nebraska

Preface

The 21st century is generally regarded by knowledgeable scientific and intelligence analysts as a century of looming water issues because of worldwide diminution of access to that essential resource as a result of burgeoning human populations and resultant climate change. Afghanistan is at the top of the watershed, or the place from where several major rivers (Amu Darya, Kabul, Helmand, Harirud, and Murghab rivers), emanate from their headwaters. These rivers flow over the international borders into the surrounding countries in the north into Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, in the northwest into Iran and Turkmenistan, in the southwest into Iran, and in the southeast and east into Pakistan. These rivers have been the foundations of millennia of human development in Asia.

In the ever-evolving world of international water law, it has been recognized in recent years that the lowland countries of the world were the places where humankind first began its earliest irrigation schemes thousands of years ago. This resulted in the development of extensive civilizations and expanding human populations in the lowlands, who came to depend upon regular delivery of waters unhindered and undammed from the undeveloped uplands of places such as Afghanistan.

The importance of water in the modern or ancient worlds cannot be overstressed; if enough of the treasured resource was not available back in antiquity, then that particular portion of civilization must ultimately collapse. Such has happened many times before (Fagan, 2008; and many others). But now we know this, and can better predict the future, rather than allowing such an event of disappearing water to be as much of a surprise as it was to the rulers in antiquity, when clearly they thought their gods must have deserted them as the rains stopped and the waters dried up. Of course, it is possible to live in a 9th-century fantasy world of antiquity as many of the Taliban and ISIS jihadis would love to try to do as they promote their particular warped barbarism, but the alternative in the modern world is the use of good science to try to overcome human-caused difficulties, rather than give in to some supposed will of God.

In the situations outlined in this book, learning about the many variables in Central and Southwest Asia that affect, deliver, and control water in all its forms and conditions, including human machinations, would seem to have a high benefit to those who indulge in calculating all of its possible variations. It is obvious that the study and understanding of water delivery in Afghanistan and its neighboring countries of Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan have much to recommend them. This will help to bring up the capacity levels of understandings in the government and among academic water cognoscenti in Afghanistan to head off any possible confrontations later on with surrounding countries who may try to take issue with Afghanistan on its use of its waters. Local water law is always made by acquiescent governments who seek reciprocity when it is convenient to them, but adequate forewarning of coming changes does help to protect against less desired climatic outcomes, and can influence water legalities in the international eye. Training of Afghan government officials and bringing them up to international levels of hydro-understanding will enable them to profit in any sort of water treaty negotiations with hydro-experts from other countries as they all negotiate the international distributions of water allocations and seek additional funding to build dams and irrigation infrastructures.

Recently, much has been made of rivers that dry up before they reach the sea because of human withdrawals upstream (neo-arheism) (Falkenmark and Lannerstad, 2005; Lannerstad, 2002; L’vovich and White, 1990; Meybeck, 2003). In fact, however, all of the large rivers (Kabul, Helmand, and Amu Darya) originating in Afghanistan have been drying up repeatedly as a result of overuse, likely coupled with climate change before they reach their historical destination. These facts are the strongest evidence possible that water issues in Afghanistan are most serious and serve as a strong harbinger of things to come in Central and South Asia, as well as many other semiarid and arid areas of the world. Because of this forecast of such serious problems in a world of coming climate change, study of these aspects of water in Central and South Asia is a highly valuable exercise.

The study of water in all its forms runs the gamut from the stark physics of an unusual material that behaves quite differently from almost all other compounds in nature (expanding when cold, decreasing its density when solid, etc.), and is so essential to life on this planet. This critical necessity extends out to exert control on the bewildering plethora of all the different levels of water delivery and usage for humans. Everyone has some little understanding of water in their own experience with the material, but few can understand all of its attributes unless they study the character of water and the physical and human manipulations thereof. This means that not only is water an unusual substance essential to life, but its core uses to humanity and all other life transcend simplistic understandings so that great analytical expertise must be applied to manage it properly. Because all too many people can take water for granted, and quite misunderstand some of its apparently mysterious and diverse attributes, they can be rather surprised when the water somehow diminishes or disappears. One of the purposes of this book is to explain some of these mysteries of water in Central and Southwest Asia so that no one in government who has been paying attention will have to wonder too much about what is happening to the hydrologic character of their region.

Building hydro-capacity in any region is thus an issue of education; teaching about the basic physics and chemistry of this vital H2O substance, even while the basic geoscience (surfical physical geography and hydrology of rivers, coupled with the hydrogeology of water underground) is added in to give an essential background context. This is all the basic science, which is not all that complex; it is just that there can be a great deal of it, or even nearly an overwhelming amount, and people may be loath to take on understanding of too much of this information lest they feel that they do not need to understand all of it. Then because so much cultural or sociological baggage concerning water also exists in any given society to surmount as well, the amount of information required can feel fairly overwhelming. Nonetheless, because this information is so essential to wise management of this critical resource, this book is designed to serve as a foundation document to assist water-cognizant agents in Central and Southwest Asia.

Many people in Afghanistan now recognize that most of the illiterate Taliban insurgency against their government does not know that the lowland neighbors who support the insurgency actually are most interested in unrestricted access to the water that comes from Afghanistan. Keeping that water under-utilized in an under-developed Afghanistan is thus obviously of advantage to the neighboring countries. For lowland countries to foreclose on the rights of upland countries to also develop is obviously not fair. Some solutions to this problem are water-capacity building in Afghanistan so that the government officials will comprehend the situation and be more able to deal with hydro-issues more effectively in future. The age of hydro-diplomacy (Eliasson, 2015) is now firmly upon us, and it is seen as an essential aspect of the human condition as the rising pressures of global water shortages loom largely everywhere, but especially in Central and Southwest Asia.

References

Eliasson J. The rising pressure of global water shortages. Nature. 2015;517(7532):6.

Fagan B. The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations. New York: Bloomsbury Press; 2008.

Falkenmark M., Lannerstad M. Consumptive water use to feed humanity—curing a blind spot. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 2005;9:15–28.

Lannerstad M. Consumptive Water Use Feeds the World and Makes Rivers Run Dry, MSc Thesis. Sweden, Stockholm: Royal Instutue of technology (KTH); 2002.

L’vovich M.I., White G.F. Use and transformations of terrestrial water systems. In: Turner B.L.II, eds. The Earth as Transformed by Human Action: Global and Regional Changes in the Biosphere Over the Past 300 Years. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1990.

Meybeck M. Global analysis of river systems: from Earth system controls to Anthropocene syndromes. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B. 2003;358:1935–1955.

Introduction

Transboundary Water Resources in Afghanistan: Climate Change and Land-Use Implications is a new book by John (Jack) F. Shroder, Sher Jan Ahmadzai, and several of their colleagues, taking a look at a vital resource of increasing scarcity in the world. Afghanistan, being at the top of the Hindu Kush watershed, is blessed with precipitation at the higher altitudes but starved for water in its lowland steppes and deserts. Inequality of water availability has long been a contentious issue in a region now caught in the throes of climate-change stressors that add to the volatile mix of ethnicities and religious ideologies contributing to much violence to the area.

This book is divided into three parts: an introduction to the physical characteristics of water in the region; extensive assessment of issues of water management in Afghanistan and neighboring countries; and distance learning where necessary information and understanding about water can be transmitted electronically across borders most easily.

The book begins with an assessment of the regional hydrologic cycle and hydro-geography of Afghanistan and surrounding countries through which the water from the highlands flows. The underground water of Afghanistan is considered as a whole, with detail in the vital Kabul and Kandahar basins. Water as a hazard (flood, drought, snow avalanches, and wet landslides) is a major problem, adding additional climate-change threats and disasters. Water management in Afghanistan is considered in both traditional and more modern forms. Adding to the comprehensive nature of this book are issues of old and new dams, decreasing water quality and quantity, and lack of historic water-data collection in the face of new opportunities for remote-sensing assessments of water above and below ground. Limited-to-absent water treaties with neighboring countries are addressed in detail, with new ideas of international water law that can be applied through diplomatic negotiations. Educational limitations caused by long wars have necessitated hydro-cognizant capacity building in Afghanistan to deal with new ideas about gaining various hydro-hegemonic controls over transboundary water resources. Some means to help with these issues can be obtained by attention to the beneficial treatment of water in Islam, as well as recognition of climate-change reasons for the rise of drought-resistant opium poppies. Hydro-politics in Afghanistan is fraught with complexity and political machinations due to an uncertain future of water management in Asia. Some diverse water issues can be alleviated through concerted efforts to raise educational levels by electronic distance learning and use of the hydro-information that this book provides.

Part I

Introduction to Physical Characteristics of Water

Introduction

1 Characteristics of the Regional Hydrological Cycle 3

2 Hydrogeography (Drainage Basins and Rivers) of Afghanistan and Neighboring Countries 23

3 Ground-Water Geology of Afghanistan 41

4 Development of Water Resources in the Kabul River Basin 91

5 H2O Hazards, Risks, and Disasters in Afghanistan and Surrounding Countries 121

6 Characteristics and Implications of Climate Change in Afghanistan and Surrounding Regions 145

The focus of this work is on the water that arises in the mountains of Afghanistan and flows more or less radially outward across the borders of Afghanistan and into the neighboring countries of Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. China also borders Afghanistan in the far northeast, but no water is transmitted across this border, so that area is not included. Because Afghanistan is the center of our focus and the pivot point of our expertise, we provide the most information about transboundary water deriving from that country. By necessity, however, some discussion of the hydrological problems of the neighboring countries must be included as well. Less important then, for the neighboring countries bordering Afghanistan, is any great detail about their hydrological situation, because such is neither directly relevant nor deeply bedded in our expertise. Instead the discussions herein can serve as a basis for more advanced, or detailed assessments of the water in bordering countries.

The result of the focus being described here is that in any exposition of transboundary waters, the hydrological geography and geology of the source region provides an essential set of attributes upon which to focus. Thus the energy sources that run the hydrological cycle are relevant, as are the processes that move gaseous, liquid, and solid H2O between locations. The basic principles and characteristics of the regional hydrological cycle must figure in the initial discussion, which also includes the regional and local climate controls. Aspects such as the winds that bring precipitation-bearing storms are essential, as are discussions of the snow and ice in the mountains, which later melt seasonally or, after much delay as glacier storage, also melt to eventually become river water downstream. On hillsides, the water runs off and initiates the soil-destroying sheet and gulley erosion that is so detrimental to long-term agricultural productivity and fills up essential water impoundments with sediment so that water availability for irrigation is reduced, and hydroelectric power generation is curtailed. Finally, the configuration of the drainage basins and the major surface rivers is essential to comprehend the main aspects of water availability.

Hidden below the ground surface, of course, are all the unusual aspects of underground water, which, because it has been hidden from view for so long everywhere in the world, tends to be poorly understood and improperly used or under-utilized. Nonetheless, in areas where the environment has long been grossly abused by the hand of man—and Afghanistan is known as emblematic of such a place—great over-utilization or contamination of this vital resource can become a severe problem. In fact, as the climate of the world changes, warming and drying in Central and Southwest Asia, these problems will only get worse, so it is essential for agents of the governments of the region to understand these issues and attempt to seek solutions where possible. In addition, the hazards, risks, and disasters associated with all the forms of H2O in action in Central and Southwest Asia are critical to understand as well, particularly because some of the associated hazard problems are among the worst in the world. Water, of course, constitutes one of the chief natural hazards at work, mainly in the cases of either too much or too little of the compound so that flood and drought disasters are greatly feared and little understood in Afghanistan or throughout the region.

Finally, various aspects of climate change have become ever more obvious to many people of the world as mega-droughts and mega-storms rage across the planet. Among the high mountain water towers of Asia, more and more recognition of glaciers wasting away, increasing meltwater lakes in breakout floods, formerly dependable perennial rivers drying up in certain seasons, increasing dust storms—all appear to be short-term evidence akin to weather variability that might be harbingers of the new realities of common coming climate change. This book is, at least in part, an attempt to bring recognition to the new problems, and by exposing them to greater light, perhaps to help alleviate some societal problems.

Chapter 1

Characteristics of the Regional Hydrological Cycle

J. Shroder    University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, United States

Abstract

The hydrological cycle in Central and Southwest Asia, of course, operates essentially the same as it does in the rest of the world, but it does have regional variations in character and timing of its phases, energy sources, winds, distributions, climate and topographic influences, and other controlling factors that need to be understood. The high mountains of the region serve as the water-tower catchments for the elusive moisture that passes over the dry lowlands, but fortunately for the people who live there, that moisture precipitates orographically in the mountains above them. Not so fortunately, however, the common devegetation and soil erosion that also occur so commonly in the region, end up despoiling the surficial environments and reducing water infiltration into the surficial soils so that the runoff is accelerated into flashfloods and is thereby wasted. In any case, multiple drainage basins have resulted, the development and use of which are the focus of this book.

Keywords

Water physics; H2O phases; Precipitation; Climate controls; Mountain topography; Glaciers; Devegetation; Rapid runoff; Liquid and solid flow; Drainage systems

Outline

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Regional Climate Controls

1.3 Mountain Topography of the Region

1.3.1 Snow and Glaciers in the Mountains

1.3.2 Devegetation

1.3.3 Rain and Snowmelt on Hillsides

1.3.4 Snow and Ice Melt Becomes River Water

1.4 Drainage Systems

1.5 Conclusion

References

1.1 Introduction

Water in Central and Southwest Asia is such a precious resource in the dominantly semiarid and arid environments in which people live in the region that this book is designed to answer a number of essential questions. First and foremost, of course, is a basic exposition of the science behind this aqueous resource before we investigate the human aspects of water management in the region. Thus in this case, our intent is to present the basic facts about how hydrological cycles (Fig. 1.1; in multiple languages) work in general, and progressively work into the more arcane details of local water situations in the region.

Fig. 1.1 The hydrologic (water) cycle of the world (A) in English (from US Geological Survey on-line source http://water.usgs.gov/edu/graphics/watercyclesummary.jpg (accessed 15.02.15)); (B) in Farsi; (C) in Pashto; (D) in Urdu; and (E) in Russian.

The basic physics of the system H2O that everyone knows more or less is that the liquid phase is water, the solid phase is frozen ice, and the gaseous phase is water vapor (Fig. 1.2). The basic principles of the hydrological cycle are that these different aspects or phases of the H2O system cycle endlessly back and forth to the many different locations in the oceans, atmosphere, glaciers, soil moisture, freshwater and salt lakes, and underground water. The processes that move the H2O between its many locations include:

Fig. 1.2 Phase transformations of the H 2 O system and the heat energy taken on or released between the three phases of liquid water, gaseous water vapor, and solid water ice (A) in calories and (B) kilo-joules per kilogram.

• evaporation (liquid water to water vapor);

• precipitation (vapor phase to liquid rain, mixed solid and liquid sleet, solid snow);

• infiltration (water movement down into soil porosity and cracks in rock);

• transpiration (liquid water converted to vapor and emitted from plants);

• liquid flow (water currents, floods);

• solid flow and fracture (long-term deformation of glacier ice under gravity pressure);

• sublimation (solid ice conversion to vapor phase); and

• ablation (solid ice conversion to liquid and vapor phases).

The energy sources that cause the phase transformations between solid, liquid, and gas are the radiation from the sun, the rotation of the Earth in space, the winds of the Earth, and the gravitational attraction of the water mass to the Earth. As these phase changes occur back and forth between the three types, some of the energy of the system is locked up inside the different phases and it can come back out as the latent heat of condensation/vaporization (water vapor condenses to liquid water, or water to gas, which equals about 2257 kJ/kg, or 600 cal of heat energy), and the latent heat of fusion/freezing (solid ice melts to liquid water, or water freezes to ice, which equals about 335 kJ/kg, or 80 cal). In general these energy conversions can be ignored unless calculations are needed to more precisely understand the absorption and release of these energies in understanding phase transformations as important aspects of climate change and other such relevant aspects. These heat energies can drive other parts of the system to affect the temperature-controlled winds, for example.

1.2 Regional Climate Controls

Most of the water of the Earth is visibly in the oceans of the world, where some 96.5% is held (Fig. 1.3), and only 2.5% of the total amount of water on the planet is freshwater. Of that total amount of freshwater available for humans and other life to utilize, glaciers hold about 69% of the total, water underground holds about 30%, and that leaves only about 1.2% as surface water in rivers and lakes. If you then count up how that small 1.2% is distributed, you can see that again about 69% of it is in underground ice, lakes have about 30% of it, and rivers have only about 0.5% of the remainder, along with smaller amounts in the soils, the atmosphere, swamps, and living things. No wonder water is so precious!

Fig. 1.3 The distributions of the world's water by its physical locations. From Shiklomanov, I., 1993. World fresh water resources. In: Gleick, P.H. (Ed.), Water in Crisis: A Guide to the World's Fresh Water Resources. Oxford University Press, New York, http://www.envirothon.org/files/2014/The_Water_Cycle.pdf.

The hydrological cycle in Central and Southwest Asia receives the greater part of its moisture dominantly from storms that originate in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, or from the Indian Ocean (Fig. 1.4). The wind sources that import these storms into the region are:

Fig. 1.4 Seasonal maps of Asia in (A) summer and (B) winter showing dominant wind directions and positions of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) of the stormy, moisture-laden air masses that rise because of their warmth and cause monsoonal precipitation. The thermal low pressure in the summer season over Pakistan and part of Afghanistan shows the patterns of winds in the region at that time. Map by permission from the Center for Afghanistan Studies.

• westerly winds that blow mainly in winter from the Atlantic and Mediterranean;

• monsoon winds that blow from the south in summer from the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean;

• the wind of 120 days (badi sado bist roz) blows out of Central Asia in summer from the north and west into Afghanistan and loops south and southeast into the low pressures of the monsoon that are dominantly along the border with Pakistan (Fig. 1.4A);

• katabatic winds—cold air drainage blows down from the Tibetan Plateau and other high-altitude mountain areas of the Hindu Kush mountains (Fig. 1.5); and

Fig. 1.5 Cold descending katabatic winds (upper) and warm rising anabatic winds that are typical in mountainous desert areas. From the BBC Weather Centre on line.

• anabatic wind—hot air rises up from lowland deserts that abound all around Afghanistan (Fig. 1.5).

The natural water supplies of any country are generally that which comes from the sky, either on an annual basis to produce river runoff, or the portion that is stored underground. The underground water is commonly derived from precipitation that has fallen, infiltrates through the soil and downward, where it is held underground, perhaps for a very long time. Thus in order to understand the watersheds and their importance in arid countries such as Afghanistan and its neighboring countries of Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, we must first consider the overall climate of the region, with its strong variations in precipitation, as we focus on the all-important hydrology of the Hindu Kush, Pamir, and Western Himalaya, mainly in terms of the causes and effects of glacier ice, the rivers, and the lakes.

The climates of the Earth are controlled largely by the amount of precipitation and temperature delivered at different times and places as a function of latitude, altitude, and position on a continent relative to ocean water masses. Mountainous and desertic countries such as Afghanistan, and all its neighboring countries, the interiors of most of which are far from oceanic moisture sources and subject to the vicissitudes of variable winds and erratic supplies of precipitation; all are characterized also by extremes of what is called continentally wherein winters can be quite cold and summers excessively hot and dry so that any water derived from snow melt and rainstorm precipitation is essential but evaporates quickly.

In general, Afghanistan and its neighboring countries are dominantly arid to semiarid regions, except in the frontal or foothill mountains where more orographic precipitation is caused when air masses are forced to rise and the attendant cooling causes condensation of moisture out of the air (Fig. 1.6). The amount of precipitation increases to the northeast in Afghanistan, and to the north in both Tajikistan and Pakistan, in response to the higher altitudes there (Fig. 1.7). Average annual precipitation is commonly < 210 mm in many areas, declining to < 110 mm in the southwestern deserts, and increasing to > 1000 mm in the high mountains. In all, over 80% of the Afghanistan's water resources have their origin in the mountains > 2000 m in altitude, which function as a natural storage of snow and ice that supports perennial flow in all the major rivers in summer. Such is also true of much of northern Pakistan and southwestern Tajikistan, although percentages and altitudes vary (Fig. 1.7).

Fig. 1.6 Orographic rainfall that rains out on one side of a mountain and then the descending air on the other rain-shadow side warms and dries.

Fig. 1.7 Precipitation in Afghanistan and the nearest parts of the neighboring countries. From Breckle, S.-W., Dittman, A., Rafifiqpoor, M.D., (Eds.), 2010. Field Guide Afghanistan: Flora and Vegetation, Scienta Bonnensis, Bonn, Germany; Shroder, J., 2014. Natural Resources in Afghanistan: Geographic and Geologic Perspectives on Centuries of Conflict. Elsevier.

In Afghanistan, the main period of precipitation in winter is borne on the Westerly winds and extends from November to May, but is shortened in the south to December through April. About half of the precipitation occurs in winter (January to March), mostly as snow. A further third of the moisture falls in spring (April to June). In the summer season some monsoonal precipitation makes it into extreme southeastern Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan, although occasionally monsoon moisture sources go well into the Hindu Kush in Central and Northern Afghanistan as well.

Precipitation in the summer in Pakistan is monsoonal of course, and it can be torrential, with major flooding being common, especially because Pakistan has a dearth of appropriate flood-control dams and other such necessary infrastructure. In the winter season, precipitation in Pakistan is dominantly from the Westerly winds, just as it is in most seasons elsewhere in the region in Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

The water cycle is absolutely critical to all these countries, of course, just as it is in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the forces in the hydrological cycle have been nearly totally responsible for shaping most of the structural geomorphic landforms that abound in the region (Shroder, 2014), as well as the largest share of the natural hazards of the region. As overall semiarid to arid nations, a number of places in all of the countries of this region have no real surficial drainage; they are arheic. Elsewhere, however, the drainage net is well developed and provides the basic water source to the people, even as it is also responsible for the general character of most of the landscapes except in the driest of the broad lowland areas (Registan).

The watershed boundaries in Afghanistan begin high on ridge and mountain tops, generally, but not entirely, in the middle and northeast of the country; thereafter the rivers flow radially outward over the borders into neighboring countries. This position at the top of the watersheds places Afghanistan geomorphically as a source of snow and glacier ice storage and melt-water river delivery downstream that combine to produce most of the geomorphology or landforms of the country. Below the land surface of the nation the fractures in the bedrock, and the natural porosity in the sediment-filled basins throughout the nation (Kabul, Jalalabad, Seistan, northern basins), have considerable storage of underground water that is obtained through gently inclined karez tunnels, as well as boreholes and pumps.

Similarly, in Pakistan the high mountains receive plentiful precipitation, particularly from the winter Westerly winds, but also to a certain extent in the foothills to the Himalaya, whereas from there to the south is where most of monsoonal precipitation occurs. In general in Pakistan then, the precipitation received in the country can be divided into two main seasons: the summer monsoon that comes in from the east and southeast from July to September, and the winter Westerly disturbances that come into the country from across Iran and Afghanistan from December to March. In spite of severe monsoonal flooding in 2010 and 2011 in Pakistan, recent analyses show a significantly decreasing trend of precipitation all over the country, with periodic prolonged droughts that will pose severe risks to agriculture and the water-management sectors in Pakistan. The overall climate of Pakistan ranges from the high altitude glacier ice and tundra in the north, down through the more temperate and subtropical climates in the foothills to the semiarid steppes and arid deserts of Baluchistan south of Afghanistan and in Sind to the southeast along the border with India.

In Tajikistan, the high Pamir Mountains catch much of the Westerly precipitation that can come in all seasons but especially in winter and spring. The weather and climate are quite variable between conditions of strong continentality with its extremes of cold and hot temperatures, high-altitude, humid mountain environments, warm and cold steppe climates, and lowland, arid deserts. This presents a number of different climate zones, from subtropical, moderate temperate and Mediterranean-type climates, to high tundra and glacial environments.

None of the other countries in the region (Iran, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) have significant glacier-water storage. For this reason they thus lack any significance to the discussion of transboundary water resources associated with Afghanistan rivers, and so will not be discussed further here.

1.3 Mountain Topography of the Region

The highland mountain terrains of Central and Southwest Asia that host the glaciers and snow that provide so much of the local water supplies begin with the so-called Pamir Knot, which is located in Central Asia. The Pamir Mountains are formed by the junction or knot of the Tian Shan, Karakoram Himalaya, Kunlun, and Hindu Kush ranges. They are among the world's highest-altitude cluster of mountains. They are also known by the Chinese name of Congling 葱嶺 or Onion Mountains. The region of the Pamir Knot is centered in the Tajikistan region of Gorno-Badakhshan. Parts of the Pamir knot also lie in the countries of Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. South of Gorno-Badakhshan, the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan runs through the Pamir region, along with the Hindu Kush and Hindu Raj mountains, which also include the northern extremes of the Khyber Paktunkhwa (old North-West Frontier) Province and the northern extremes of the Northern Areas of Pakistan, part of which (Siachen Glacier) in the Karakoram Himalaya is contested with India. As a whole this region is characterized by being the highland source of numerous rivers that emanate from the melt of the profuse snow and glaciers of the region, coupled with plentiful precipitation from the Westerly and Monsoonal moisture sources.

1.3.1 Snow and Glaciers in the Mountains

Snow in mountains that does not melt away each summer will change to glacier ice in 5–7 years. Glacier ice moves downhill because of gravity. Such glacier ice is long-term storage of potential water for use in later years. Because of climate change in the past few decades, however, glacier ice in Afghanistan and the region in general has been melting away (Haritashya et al., 2009; Shroder and Bishop, 2010a,b). Once it is gone, it will not come back for a very long time—maybe never. Some glacier ice in Pakistan has been melting away, but in the highest Karakoram and Nanga Parbat, some glaciers have been growing because of global warming producing greater evaporation from the sea, which produces increased snow at high elevations. All glaciers depend on snow for accumulation to the eventual ice that they become. Then they can flow downhill to warmer locations at lower altitudes where they melt away in what is accounted for by measures of their mass balance (measures of accumulation against wastage) (Fig. 1.8). This melting wastage is controlled mainly by summer temperatures, which themselves are controlled by the amount of sunlight that falls on the ice to melt it, and the cloudiness that occurs to reduce the sunlight.

Fig. 1.8 (A) Cross section of mountain glacier showing uppermost zone of accumulation and lowermost zone of ablation. Névé or firn is recrystallized snowflakes; the firn line or equilibrium line is the place on the glacier every year in balance between the uppermost zone of accumulation of the new snow, and the lower zone of wastage where the ice melted away. (B) Oblique profile of configuration of a mountain glacier with a cross section at its edge. Diagrams by permission, Center for Afghanistan Studies.

The accumulation of snow in the highlands in winter both melts and runs off into the rivers in spring and summer, or it remains throughout the year and becomes in a few years, a glacial river of ice. About 3000 separate glaciers exist in Afghanistan with an estimated area of ~ 2700 km², but they were once far more numerous than now and they were also much larger more than 11,700 years ago in the Pleistocene (Ice Age) time. At present, the glaciers of Afghanistan are concentrated in the higher northeastern drainages of the country (Amu Darya, Panjshir—Kunar—Kabul). High seismicity, frequent avalanches of snow and ice as well as rocks, coupled with widespread stagnation, retreat, and downwasting of the glacier ice have produced numerous debris-covered ice and rock glaciers, many of which have been essential sources of melt-water in past late summers (Bishop et al., 2014). Some of these important sources have probably melted out and dried up in recent years. The largest remaining glaciers in the Wakhan Pamir of Afghanistan have been mapped in detail recently (Haritashya et al., 2009), and assessed with comprehensive remote sensing with satellites in space, with the result that the glaciers can be seen through their pervasive retreat and downwasting to have mainly negative mass balances in recent decades, unlike some nearby higher-altitude glaciers in the Karakoram Himalaya of Pakistan that have been growing larger in some places (Copland et al., 2012).

Pakistan has over 5000 glaciers on its territory, amounting to perhaps 15,000 km² of thick ice cover. This large amount of glacier ice storage is a long-term valuable resource that provides tremendous summer and fall melt-water downstream on the Indus and many of its tributary drainages. Because of some lack of true scientific understandings about glaciers in the Himalaya in recent years, coupled with unprecedented media hysteria about all glaciers seemingly melting entirely away in a few decades, some startlingly inaccurate scare statements have been made. Nonetheless, the world's climates are changing quickly and the people of Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan must develop good understandings of changes to come so that they are not caught off guard concerning their vital water resources.

Tajikistan is considered the main glacier center of Central Asia, with some 8000 glaciers occupying an area of about 8400 km², which is about 6% of the land area of the country (Kayumov, n.d. but post-2009). Seven glaciers in the high mountains of the Pamir are more than 20 km long, but most to all have been retreating and downwasting in recent years. The largest, the Fedchenko Glacier, has retreated by 44 km², which is 6% of its total area, and downwasted as much as 50 m in its lower regions. This is exemplary of the glaciers of the regional condition, and indicates the seriousness of the ongoing climate change, which so threatens regional water supplies.

Glaciers are markedly efficient erosion agents in Central and Southwest Asia, and high in the mountains of Afghanistan they have produced many spectacular landforms that have been mapped and discussed elsewhere (Shroder and Bishop, 2010a; Shroder, 2014). All of the stored ice is also a vital source of melt-water downstream, especially in late summer and early fall when second cropping can provide important additional food to hungry people. If this observed trend of glacier and ground-ice diminution in Afghanistan and throughout the region continues as it is projected to do, the implications to the arid countries are obviously most serious.

1.3.2 Devegetation

Throughout the region of Afghanistan and the surrounding countries, the removal of vegetation through deforestation, dearbification (Shroder, 2014), overgrazing, and widespread despoliation of landscapes is a scourge of environments that adds hugely to the diminution of water supplies. In spite of the attendant decrease in transpiration with plant loss, the fact that devegetation contributes so much to soil erosion because plant roots hold the soil in place against soil loss, the result is that devegetation contributes to a direct decrease in infiltration of soil water, surface runoff is accelerated and adds to ever greater soil erosion, and downstream floods increase as well.

1.3.3 Rain and Snowmelt on Hillsides

The splash of raindrops on the soil picks up little soil particles and moves them in the splash of the water (Fig. 1.9). At the top of the hill slope, the overland sheet flow produces sheet erosion. Lower down the slope, the rill flow produces rill erosion, and where the rills flow together, gully erosion occurs (Fig. 1.10). Some water soaks (infiltrates) into ground and adds to essential ground-water storage that can be accessed by karez and tube wells. Water that runs off the top of hill slopes first forms thin sheets of water that cover nearly all the ground in what is termed, sheet flow or overland flow. Some little way down the hill slope, however, the thin water sheets begin to collect more in slightly deeper depressions of a few centimeters that are known as rills to produce rill flow. The rills join together further downslope and produce deeper gully flow, which themselves join together further downhill to produce stream flow or river flow. This water that runs off on the hillsides causes erosion of soil in which plants grow. All of this erosion increases, as noted above, where devegetation accelerates the processes of erosion. This soil erosion is a slow and terrible scourge that slowly destroys agricultural production and is insidious because people tend not to notice it, except over the very long term. It is a most serious hazard in the Asian regions, and should be protected against by construction of hillside benches and terraces, and with small rock check-dams in the low places where the water runs (Fig. 1.11). These check-dams trap the soil erosion and let the runoff water soak into the ground to save it for use later.

Fig. 1.9 Illustration of rainsplash erosion and soil-particle mobilization, transport, and deposition. Diagrams by permission, Center for Afghanistan Studies.

Fig. 1.10 Areas of sheet flow and sheet erosion on the upper slopes, passing downhill into zones of rills and rill erosion, to the lowermost gullies where the runoff water is concentrated. Diagrams by permission, Center for Afghanistan Studies.

Fig. 1.11 Photograph of gully in Afghanistan where a small check dam of rocks has been installed to help prevent further soil-erosion transport downhill. Many such check dams and slope terraces were built with money from foreign military agribusiness development teams (ADTs) but because the indigenous knowledge of reasons to do this is general lacking among the tribesmen, the prolongation or maintenance of such intelligent actions into the future is not likely to occur (by permission of Douglass Wissing).

1.3.4 Snow and Ice Melt Becomes River Water

The melt waters of snow and ice flow downhill to become river water. Because glacier ice in the mountains also grinds up the rock that it moves over, a huge amount of sediment from glaciers gets into the river water where it is carried downstream. This sediment, as well as all that generated by the common soil erosion fills up behind dams and reduces water storage and water use behind the reservoir dam so the sediment must be diverted away before it gets to the dam site if this can be engineered, or excavated and removed later if possible. Several engineering techniques have been developed to stop or remove excess sediment in reservoirs but these techniques have not been much used, if at all in Central and Southwest Asia.

1.4 Drainage Systems

Every stream, or segment of a river, is surrounded by its drainage basin, which is the total area of the land surface that contributes water into the stream. These drainage basins are also referred to as watersheds, or the area which sheds its water. The high-point line or region that separates one drainage basin from another is a drainage divide (Fig. 1.12). Drainage basins range in size from less than a square kilometer to vast areas of subcontinental dimension (Fig. 1.13). For example, the huge Indus River drainage basin starts near Mt. Kailas in the Himalaya of Tibet in China, before flowing across the Himalaya Mountains of northwestern India and into the Karakoram Himalaya of northern Pakistan, past the Nanga Parbat Himalaya, and out onto the lowland plains and plateaus at the Tarbella Dam site at the front of the mountains. In Afghanistan, the Kabul River and the Panjshir River flow together at the Sarobi confluence, before going on in the Jalalabad Basin to receive the Kunar River tributary and thereafter flowing across the border with Pakistan to receive the Swat River tributary before joining the Indus River at Attock. The drainage basin of the Kabul River thus includes most of eastern Afghanistan and part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in Pakistan (Table