WATER SOURCES IN

PAKISTAN
M .Nadeem Ashraf
Soil & Environmental sciences
Faculty of Agriculture,
Rawalakot
Introduction
Water covers 71% of the earths surface
Water moves continually through a cycle of evaporation, precipitation and runof
Essential for all forms of life.

Ravi
Water sources
Sources from which water is available for
water supply schemes are called water
sources.
The most common sources of water for
irrigation includes:
Surface Water (Rivers, Reservoirs and
Lakes).
Ground water.
the
chanab
Surface water
Water in a river, lake or fresh water wetland.
Naturally replenished by precipitation, lost through
discharge to the oceans, evaporation, and subsurface
seepage.
The total quantity of water in a system may depends
on
Storage capacity
Permeability
Runoff
Precipitation and evaporation rate
Human activities can have large and devastating
impact on these factor by
increase storage capacity by Constructing dam
Decrease it by draining wetlands
Total quantity of available water depends on
seasons like
1)Winter
2)Summer
Humans can cause surface water to be lost (i.e.
become unusable) through pollution.

Desalination
Artificial process by which Saline water is
converted into fresh water
Distillation and reverse osmosis
Expensive process
Water availability
Vary a lot over the year, or even
between one year and another
Supply depends on the capacity of
withdrawing technique.
Methods of tapping water from water
sources
By making use of gravity
By using a pump
Haripur
dam
Rivers
Sources of irrigation water all over the
world.
The flow of river fluctuates over time.
The discharge of rivers is commonly
expressed in cubic meters per second.
Tapping water from rivers
Direct river diversion
River diversion using a weir
Pumping from a river
Hub dam
Lakes
Natural depressions of land.
Lakes are supplied with water by
rainfall that falls directly on the surface
of lakes.
By water run-off from adjacent land.
Lakes loses water via
Evaporation.
Through percolation from the bottom of
the lake to the groundwater.
The amount of irrigation water required
must be less than the quantity of water
The Jhelum
available in lakes
Reservoirs
Amount of water in a reservoir depends on
River discharge
Height of the dam
Area of the reservoir
On-stream storage
Off-stream storage
Pumping from a Lake or Reservoir
Water can be taken from lakes or reservoir via
Direct diversion
Concrete or steel pipe
Pumps Indus river from
Karakouram highway
Groundwater
An important source of irrigation water
Groundwater may be found close to
the surface or at profound depth
In coastal plains the groundwater is
often brackish or saline due to the
proximity of the sea
Inland groundwater may also be
brackish in places where the soil
contains many soluble salts
Pumping from wells
To tap groundwater a well must be dig
deeper than the groundwater level. Kabul
Shallow groundwater attock

Deep groundwater
Surface water of Pakistan

The Ravi
Dams
Before Partition:

Khushdil Khan Dam (1890).

Spin Karaiz (1945).
Namal Dam (1913).

After Partition:
Mangla Dam.
Tarbela Dam.
Mangla
dam
Rivers
Water Sources measurement at Rim
Station.
Rim Station
Indus Rivers
Brings 154 MAF of Water annually (144.91
MAF from Western Rivers and 9.14 MAF from
Eastern River).
104.73 MAF used for irrigation.
39.4 MAF flows to sea.
9.9 MAF is consumed by the system losses.
s Sutlej river
It comprises of
Major reservoirs : 3
Barrages : 16
Head Works : 2
Siphons : 2
Inter river link canals : 12
Canal system : 44
Punjab : 23
Sindh : 14
NWFP : 5
Balochistan : 2
Watercourses : 107,000
Aggregate length of canals is about 56,073 km.
Watercourses, Form Channels and Field Ditches, covers
1.6 million km.
Tube wells : 500,000 The chanab
Ground Water
Sindh and Balochistan : 40 ft depth.
Rachna Doab : 100 ft .
1950s SCARP introduced deep tube wells to
control salinity and water logging.
Within 30 years 13,500 tube wells were installed
(9300 in Punjab).
Now about 41.6 MAF water supply is from
500,000 tube wells .
In Punjab 79%, in Sindh 28% of the area is
underline by freshwater.
Ground water become a major supplement of
canal supplies in last 25-30 years. Tarbela spillway
Quality of ground water.
Fresh (salinity less than 1000 mg / l TDS).
Saline (salinity less than 3000 mg / l TDS).
Punjab
79% fresh water.
9.78 million acres are underline with ground water of
less than 1000 mg/ l TDS.
3 million acres with salinity ranging from 1000-3000
mg / l TDS.
3.26 million acres with salinity more than 3000 mg / l
TDS. Rawal dam
Saline water in central Doab area.
Brackish water in Cholistan area.
Ground water with high fluoride contents in Kasur, Mianwali
Sindh
28 % fresh groundwater.
Found at depth of 20-25 m.
Large area with groundwater of poor quality.
Thar, Nara and Kohistan with non-portable, highly brackish
water.
Tharparker and Umerkot with high fluoride contents in ground
water.
NWFP
In NWFP, certain areas such as Karak, Kohat , Bannu and D.I.
khan has lowered the water table and resulted in contamination.
Balochistan
Makran coastal zone with highly brackish groundwater.
Local communities use groundwater with TDS as high as 3000 mg
/ l for drinking purposes.
Mastung Valley, Makran Coast and Kharan with high flouride
contents in groundwater. Lahore canal
THANK YOU