1. WATER SOURCES IN
PAKISTAN
M .Nadeem Ashraf
Soil & Environmental sciences
Faculty of Agriculture,
Rawalakot

2. Introduction
Water covers 71% of the earth’s surface
Water moves continually through a cycle of evaporation, precipitation and runof
Essential for all forms of life.
Ravi

3. 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

4. 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

5.  Total quantity of available water depends on
seasons like
2)Winter
3)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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. Surface water of Pakistan
The Ravi

12. Dams
 Before Partition:
 Khushdil Khan Dam (1890).
 Spin Karaiz (1945).
 Namal Dam (1913).
 After Partition:
 Mangla Dam.
 Tarbela Dam.
Mangla
dam

13. 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

14. 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

15. Ground Water
Sindh and Balochistan : 40 ft depth.
Rachna Doab : 100 ft .
1950’s 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. THANK YOU