LAHORE,April 12 (APP): The construction work on the Diamer-Basha dam project will commence in 2009 after international competitive bidding. The draft detailed engineering designs and tender documents of Diamer-Basha Dam project,submitted by the consultants are being reviewed to be finalized soon. This was stated during a briefing to 37th PN staff course,Naval War College,Lahore here at WAPDA house Saturday.

Pakistan is heading towards a situation of being water short country, because per capita water availability has already reduced to an alarming figure of 1,070 cubic meters in the year 2007, the delegation was apprised. A country, according to the universally accepted parameters, is declared water scarce country if per capita availability of water reduces to 1,000 cubic meters.


The delegation was briefed that the accumulative gross storage capacity of Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma reservoirs that used to be 18.37 million acre feet (MAF) originally, has reduced to 13.22 MAF due to sedimentation, resulting in 28 % loss of storage capacity. “The construction of at least one mega dam is inevitable to meet the growing need of water in the country”, it was told. Another 20 million acres of virgin land could be brought under irrigated agriculture if additional water is made available by constructing new water reservoirs in Pakistan.

The delegation was told that the filling of water in the raised Mangla Dam would start this year. The first phase of Greater Thal, and Kachhi canals are expected to be completed by December this year, while the first phase of Rainee Canal Project is likely to be completed in March 2009. It was further told that the engineering studies of 15 hydropower projects with accumulative generation capacity of 25,270 MW are being carried out by WAPDA.

PEPCO is striving hard to minimize the gap between consumption and generation of the electricity by adopting various short, medium and long-term measures. Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) MD Director Munawar Baseer Ahmed and WAPDA Member (Water) M. Mushtaq Chaudhry briefed the delegation about the power and water scenario in the country. Later, PEPCO MD, Member (Water) and Naval War College Commandant,Comm. Khan Hashem Bin Saddique exchanged souvenirs.


http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option...30&Itemid=1

Note the coloured in bits;



It just goes to show how important it is that we build more dams and how important it is that we secure Kashmir. Otherwise we will end up short of water and starving. We are not very far off from this and it would cripple our economy and our hopes, something we cannot afford. This is not about sindh-punjab rivallry, this is about the very survival of Pakistan. Tens of millions will die of famine, if we don't act now. We will become a Zimbabwae.



A huge amount of work needs to be done to clear these dams up and increase measures to reduce sediment getting into dams. We have lost nearly 30% of capacity due to this.
This link is an excellent read about dam management; http://www.usbr.gov/pmts/sediment/kb/Erosi...rs/Chapter8.pdf

Some others;
http://internationalrivers.org/en/node/1476
Some Iranian research - http://www.waser.cn/news%20and%20announcem...ppt#256,1,Slide 1



2005-2006 we had 30 million hecatres of land that was arable (you can farm on). 20 million acres makes 8.1 million hectares. That would mean ~25-30% increase in the amount of land we could farm.

Aoa

Well, the situation seems to be alarming - I hope we are able to act before it's too late.

w/salaam

Kalabag nahi baney gay. Hamari lashoon par kalabag banao.

If these idiots understood meaning of Kalabag some 20 years ago we wont be facing energy as well as water problem. We are building dams but what Kalabag would have done is far more than the small dams we are building.

screw the PPP, they have always been a curse on Pakistan, not to mention MQM which has also been against the Kala Bagh dam even when they were in Govt. i was talking with one MQM supporter here and he was saying that we dont need dams since we can produce electricity from coal more efficiently. i said then WTF will we do about drinking water? will we also produce it from coal?

there is no limits to the jahiliyat in our political spectrum. The biggest regret I have had about Pervez Musharraf (apart from NRO) is his lack of backbone to behave as a dictator and build this dam, come what may. It is just one of many dams we need. Take a look at the powerpoint of Iran and it's water issues. Slide 5 shows how many dams Iran has, it has like 20-30 dams!

Exactly! in the first year when Musharraf came to power i remember listening to one of his speeches and he was saying how Turkey has 40 major dams and we have only a few and how important dams are to our society. i was really impressed and hoped that dams specially kala bagh get built, but then nothing happened. i would be more than happy if musharraf used force to build the dam, after all it will be for the benefit of our country. let the PPP and MQM cry all they want. when Tarbela dam was built alot of my relative's land went under the water reservoir, infact a whole town, Darband, which used to be the capital of the Amb princely state and home to many of my relatives came under the water. but no one made an issue about it, and now everyone can see how Tarbela dam is beneficial to the area and the country.

The above also happened to the people of Mirpur in Azad Kashmir as well bro [Mangla dam] and they didn’t complain either. It seems some people are more willing to sacrifice than others....What's more these PPP and MQM people who are against the building of dams in their own areas benefit from the ones built upon our land. That is what I call hypocrisy.

Anyhow I agree dams should be forcefully built as our nation's future depends upon them.

I agree a 100%... Ive been saying this for years!... No one seems to grasp the urgency of the situation.

As a nation we seem to be very short-sighted in our aims/goals.

Only when the sh*t hits the fan, do we try to scramble to make up for lost time!...

This kind of thinking can be extremely detrimental!...

Time to wake up and smell the "water" (so to speak)... we have to realize, water shortage is a serious issue facing humanity in the 21st century!