scholarly journals An Assessment of the Pakistan Water Apportionment Accord of 1991

Resources ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hassan ◽  
Burian ◽  
Bano ◽  
Ahmed ◽  
Arfan ◽  
...  

The Water Apportionment Accord (WAA) of Pakistan was instituted in 1991 to allocate Indus River water among Pakistan’s provinces. This paper assesses the performance of the WAA in terms of the accord’s ability to meet the barrages’ and environmental demands in the Lower Indus Basin. Use of metrics as assessment tools in water security and climate adaptation is an important field, with the potential to inform sustainable management policy. Reliability, resiliency, and vulnerability are used as indicators to define the system’s performance against supply. The results indicate from the pre-Accord period to the post-Accord period, the reliability of Guddu Barrage (the upstream-most barrage in the study) is not changed. However, at Sukkur and Kotri, the most downstream barrage in the study, reliability has significantly decreased. The Results reveal the high vulnerability of the Indus delta in Rabi season when the flows decline and the majority of the water at the Kotri Barrage is diverted.

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 895
Author(s):  
Geoffrey M. Podger ◽  
Mobin-ud-Din Ahmad ◽  
Yingying Yu ◽  
Joel P. Stewart ◽  
Syed Muhammad Mehar Ali Shah ◽  
...  

Pakistan’s society and economy are highly dependent on the surface and groundwater resources of the Indus River basin. This paper describes the development and implementation of a daily Indus River System Model (IRSM) for the Pakistan Indus Basin Irrigation System (IBIS) to examine the potential impact of reservoir sedimentation on provincial water security. The model considers both the physical and management characteristics of the system. The model’s performance in replicating provincial allocation ratios is within 0.1% on average and the modeling of water flow at barrages and delivered to irrigation canal commands is in agreement with recorded data (major barrage NSE 0.7). The average maximum volumetric error for the Tarbela and Mangla reservoirs are respectively 5.2% and 8.8% of mean annual inflow. The model showed that a 2.3 km3 reduction in storage volume since 1990 equates to approximately 1.3 km3 i.e., a 4–5% reduction in irrigation deliveries, respectively, for Punjab and Sindh in the dry (Rabi) season. This decline indicates that without further augmentation of system storage, the Rabi season supplies will continue to be further impacted in the future. This paper demonstrates the suitability of IRSM for exploring long term planning and operational rules and the associated impacts on water, food and energy security in Pakistan.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 2504
Author(s):  
Ian P. Prosser ◽  
Francis H. S. Chiew ◽  
Mark Stafford Smith

Climate change is threatening water security in water-scarce regions across the world, challenging water management policy in terms of how best to adapt. Transformative new approaches have been proposed, but management policies remain largely the same in many instances, and there are claims that good current management practice is well adapted. This paper takes the case of the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia, where management policies are highly sophisticated and have been through a recent transformation in order to critically review how well adapted the basin’s management is to climate change. This paper synthesizes published data, recent literature, and water plans in order to evaluate the outcomes of water management policy. It identifies several limitations and inequities that could emerge in the context of climate change and, through synthesis of the broader climate adaptation literature, proposes solutions that can be implemented when basin management is formally reviewed in 2026.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marium Sara Minhas Bandeali

Water governance and management are important challenges for the River Indus Basin in Pakistan. Water governance refers to social, political and economic factors that influence water management. The water scarcity and water security are a major concern for the state to control its water resources. The study aims to give Sindh water policy by exploring the challenges to Indus Basin in managing water resources and to identify opportunities Indus Basin can look to improve water management. Interviews were conducted from water experts and analysts having 5 years’ experience or more in the water sector of Pakistan through a semi-structured self-developed questionnaire using purposive sampling technique and transcripts were analyzed using thematic content analysis. The findings show that increasing population, climatic change and rising demand of water are major challenges Indus is facing and Indus with time is getting water-scarce therefore need strong institutions, civil society and legislatures to ensure equitable distribution of water and maintain the ecosystem. The study emphasizes that water governance and management are necessary for sustainable use of water. Pakistan, the water stress country needs to address ‘governance’ at a wider scale to solve problems in the Indus Basin for the livelihood of people. The research will benefit the state, water experts, institutions as well as civil society to promote efficient use of water in Indus Basin.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 195
Author(s):  
Muhammad Saleem Pomee ◽  
Elke Hertig

We assessed maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) temperatures over Pakistan’s Indus basin during the 21st century using statistical downscaling. A particular focus was given to spatiotemporal heterogeneity, reference and General Circulation Model (GCM) uncertainties, and statistical skills of regression models using an observational profile that could significantly be improved by recent high-altitude observatories. First, we characterized the basin into homogeneous climate regions using K-means clustering. Predictors from ERA-Interim reanalysis were then used to model observed temperatures skillfully and quantify reference and GCM uncertainties. Thermodynamical (dynamical) variables mainly governed reference (GCM) uncertainties. The GCM predictors under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios were used as “new” predictors in statistical models to project ensemble temperature changes. Our analysis projected non-uniform warming but could not validate elevation-dependent warming (EDW) at the basin scale. We obtained more significant warming during the westerly-dominated seasons, with maximum heating during the winter season through Tmin changes. The most striking feature is a low-warming monsoon (with the possibility of no change to slight cooling) over the Upper Indus Basin (UIB). Therefore, the likelihood of continuing the anomalous UIB behavior during the primary melt season may not entirely be ruled out at the end of the 21st century under RCP8.5.


2017 ◽  
Vol 06 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nazeer A ◽  
Habib Shah S ◽  
Abbasi SA ◽  
Solangi SH ◽  
Ahmad N

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zahid U. Khan ◽  
◽  
Mona Lisa ◽  
Muyyassar Hussain ◽  
Syed A. Ahmed ◽  
...  

The Pab Formation of Zamzama block, lying in the Lower Indus Basin of Pakistan, is a prominent gas-producing sand reservoir. The optimized production is limited by water encroachment in producing wells, thus it is required to distinguish the gas-sand facies from the remainder of the wet sands and shales for additional drilling zones. An approach is adopted based on a relation between petrophysical and elastic properties to characterize the prospect locations. Petro-elastic models for the identified facies are generated to discriminate lithologies in their elastic ranges. Several elastic properties, including p-impedance (11,600-12,100 m/s*g/cc), s-impedance (7,000-7,330 m/s*g/cc), and Vp/Vs ratio (1.57-1.62), are calculated from the simultaneous prestack seismic inversion, allowing the identification of gas sands in the field. Furthermore, inverted elastic attributes and well-based lithologies are incorporated into the Bayesian framework to evaluate the probability of gas sands. To better determine reservoir quality, bulk volumes of PHIE and clay are estimated using elastic volumes trained on well logs employing Probabilistic Neural Networking (PNN), which effectively handles heterogeneity effects. The results showed that the channelized gas-sands passing through existing well locations exhibited reduced clay content and maximum effective porosities of 9%, confirming the reservoir's good quality. Such approaches can be widely implemented in producing fields to completely assess litho-facies and achieve maximum production with minimal risk.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1151-1167
Author(s):  
Waheed Ali Abro ◽  
Abdul Majeed Shar ◽  
Kun Sang Lee ◽  
Asad Ali Narejo

Abstract Carbonate rocks are believed to be proven hydrocarbon reservoirs and are found in various basins of Pakistan including Lower Indus Basin. The carbonate rock intervals of the Jakkher Group from Paleocene to Oligocene age are distributed in south-western part of Lower Indus Basin of Pakistan. However, there are limited published petrophysical data sets on these carbonate rocks and are essential for field development and risk reduction. To fill this knowledge gap, this study is mainly established to collect the comprehensive high quality data sets on petrophysical properties of carbonate rocks along with their mineralogy and microstructure. Additionally, the study assesses the impact of diagenesis on quality of the unconventional tight carbonate resources. Experimental techniques include Scanning Electronic Microscopy (SEM), Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD), photomicrography, Helium porosity and steady state gas permeability. Results revealed that the porosity was in range of 2.12 to 8.5% with an average value of 4.5% and the permeability was ranging from 0.013 to 5.8mD. Thin section study, SEM-EDS, and XRD analyses revealed that the samples mostly contain carbon (C), calcium (Ca), and magnesium (Mg) as dominant elemental components.The main carbonate components observed were calcite, dolomite, micrite, Ferron mud, bioclasts and intermixes of clay minerals and cementing materials. The analysis shows that: 1) the permeability and porosity cross plot, the permeability and slippage factor values cross plots appears to be scattered, which showed weaker correlation that was the reflection of carbonate rock heterogeneity. 2) The permeability and clay mineralogy cross plots have resulted in poor correlation in these carbonate samples. 3) Several diagenetic processes had influenced the quality of carbonates of Jakkher Group, such as pore dissolution, calcification, cementation, and compaction. 4) Reservoir quality was mainly affected by inter-mixing of clay, cementation, presence of micrite muds, grain compactions, and overburden stresses that all lead these carbonate reservoirs to ultra-tight reservoirs and are considered to be of very poor quality. 5) SEM and thin section observations shows incidence of micro-fractures and pore dissolution tended to improve reservoir quality.


Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1366
Author(s):  
Muhammad Rizwan ◽  
Xin Li ◽  
Kashif Jamal ◽  
Yingying Chen ◽  
Junaid Nawaz Chauhdary ◽  
...  

The source region of the Indus River (SRIR), which is located in the Hindukush, Karakoram and Himalayan (HKH) mountainous range and on the Third Pole (TP), is very sensitive to climate change, especially precipitation changes, because of its multifarious orography and fragile ecosystem. Climate changes in the SRIR also have important impacts on social and economic development, as well as on the ecosystems of the downstream irrigation areas in Pakistan. This paper investigates the changes in precipitation characteristics by dividing the daily precipitation rate into different classes, such as light (0–10 mm), moderate (10.1–25 mm) and heavy precipitation (>25 mm). Daily precipitation data from gauging and non-gauging stations from 1961–2015 are used. The results of the analysis of the annual precipitation and rainy day trends show significant (p < 0.05) increases and decreases, respectively, while light and heavy precipitation show significant decreasing and increasing trends, respectively. The analysis of the precipitation characteristics shows that light precipitation has the highest number of rainy days compared to moderate or heavy precipitation. The analysis of the seasonal precipitation trends shows that only 18 stations have significant increasing trends in winter precipitation, while 27 stations have significant increasing trends in summer precipitation. Both short and long droughts exhibit increasing trends, which indicates that the Indus Basin will suffer from water shortages for agriculture. The results of this study could help policymakers cope with floods and droughts and sustain eco-environmental resources in the study area.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document