Water Uses in Northern Areas

Water is a very precious resource throughout the Northern Areas but there are certain limitations on its supply such as low valley precipitation and variability of flow in the Indus river. Ahmed and Joyia (2003) have delineated the following main uses of water in the region:
- Agriculture - The largest consumptive use of water in the Northern Areas is for agriculture. Most of this region receives too little rainfall in the lower, valley level altitudes to allow barani or rain-fed agriculture to flourish. The total area under barani cultivation is 2,285 ha (1990 Census of Agriculture, Northern Areas, Vol. 111). But the proportion of total cultivated land under irrigation was almost 97% in 1990.

Therefore water from the rivers and streams needs to be diverted into fields for making cultivation possible. Most of these diversions are made through channels called kuhls which can often carry water for quite a distance and are derived from streams fed by glacial and snow melt but sometimes also from springs. They may branch out into smaller secondary channels (rill) to reach individual fields. Despite the fact that in many instances water is diverted at the head-works into filter basins, a normally low angle of the channels and high turbidity of the water mean that channels still get significantly silted (Kreutzmann, 2000). They are managed collectively by the farmers.

The most dependable channels are those derived from glacial melt but they often carry amounts of silt which has both positive and negative implications for the farmer. Channels derived from springs show some variability but they are free of silt and contain warmer waters which are a boon for the crops. The most variability in flow is shown by channels derived from snow melt where severe shortages of irrigation water occur every 4-5 years and even on yearly basis there are problems of stream flow.

The following table shows the sources of irrigation and area covered in the Northern Areas. Breakdown for all the five districts of the region is also available.

Table. Sources of irrigation in the Northern Areas

Source: 1990 Census of Agriculture, Northern Areas, Vol.111 & NACS Support Project-Northern Areas Conservation Strategy, Statistical Abstract, IUCN Pakistan, 2001.
In some instances channels are also diverted from small rivers but these also experience variability from year to year because of annual fluctuations in precipitation and seasonal fluctuations in river flow. Such a channel may get inundated in May or June during increased river discharge but later in the season the flow may reduce so much that the irrigation channel may have to be moved further upstream to sustain agriculture.

Most of the agricultural land is situated on alluvial fans, river terraces and scree slopes formed by the erosion of mountain sides. The lower portion of alluvial fans, with finer sediment, and the older, better developed soils of older river terraces are more intensively cultivated. On the scree slopes the upper portions with finer sediment tend to be cultivated first.