3. Drought and Human Suffering in Afghanistan
Abdul Khabir ALIM1 and Sayed Sharif SHOBAIR2
I. Background
It is a privilege for me to speak about a life supporting substance, such as water in a country
that has experienced natural and man-made disasters for more than two decades.
The man-made disaster caused about 2 million of Afghans to lose their lives, 1 million tobecome disabled, 3 million to refuge to other countries; while the natural disaster, or thedrought has forced about 700,000 people to be displaced from their areas to other places aswell as the loss of life for a number of inhabitants. This is in addition to two major earthquakesthat happened in year 2000 and caused more than 8,000 loss of life and displacement of morethan 100,000 inhabitants of the area.
Afghanistan is a mountainous country with snow-covered mountains of high altitude, up to
7,500 m above sea level (asl). It has fertile valleys and large dessert plains (Fig. 1). From
topographic point of view, Afghanistan is classified into: low lands, (with 300 to 500 melevation asl), medium lands (with 500 to 2,000 m elevation asl), and high lands (with altitudes
higher than 2,000 m asl).
In terms of climate, Afghanistan is known by its continental climate. Nevertheless, thepresence of mountains causes many local variations. The mountain ranges of Hindu Kush arenormally moderate humid and covered by permanent snow and glaciers at altitude above 5,000m asl. In these areas, temperature is low and precipitation occurs in the form of snow, whereas
during summer, temperatures go high and virtually precipitation is nil.
Precipitation in Afghanistan is mainly correlated with altitudes. However, the presence ofsurrounding mountains in several regions (e. g., the Wakhan corridor and Bamyan highlands)
alters this rule.
More than 50% of the country which is lower than 2000 m asl receive 100 mm to 300 mm ofprecipitation per year; while the remaining 50% of the country (except Ghore and Bamyan)receive 300 to 800 mm. Mansoon also influences in part the country during summers. This isevidenced especially in southeastern parts of the country.

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2

Design engineer, WHO, Afghanistan
Water Expert, WFO, Afghanistan

1In Afghanistan nearly 50% of precipitation occurs in winter (January to March); much in theform of snow; 30% in spring (April to June) and the remaining 20% during summer andautumn. Zaranj, in south-west the driest part of the country receives a normal long-term
precipitation of 58 mm and most humid part of the country, i. e., South Salang, north-east
receives 1023 mm of precipitation per year (Fig. 2,).

Figure 1. Topographic Location of Afghanistan
The cultivable land area has been estimated at 8 million hac, which is 12% of total area ofAfghanistan. Out of this, 3.4 million hac is under cultivation. The total grazing area or pasturein the country is around 34.7 million hac. FAO/UNDP survey estimates the livestock
population in 1995-1998 to 3 million cattle and 22.8 million sheep and goat. The total
evergreen forests in the southeastern part of the country were 2.2 million hac, i. e., 3.4% of thetotal territory prior to the war. However, the armed conflict associated with the lack of law
enforcing institutions has caused this to reduce to only 2.2%.
Population of Afghanistan (projected from 1991 data) is regarded about 25 million inhabitants.
In pre-war periods, about 85% of this number was dependent on agriculture. However, due tothe current transient situation and the return of refugees, this data is in need of update.

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Figure 2. Monthly Amount of Precipitation in Different Parts of Afghanistan.

II. Water Resources
Surface water
The river basin in Afghanistan can be divided into 3 major river basins. The Amu River Basinin the north is separated from the Sistan and Indus Basins by Hindu Kush mountains. Water
catchment area of Amu River basin is estimated to 86,000 km2. Sistan (Helmand) River Basincollects precipitation of an estimated catchment area of 418,800 km2. The generated run-off
from this basin some disappear in sandy dessert of the west, while the remaining drains inHamoon-e-Helmand. Indus or Kabul River basin has an estimated catchment area of 140,160
km2 and drains finally in Indian sea via Pakistan (Fig. 3).
Groundwater
Afghanistan has huge reserves of groundwater bodies. According to FAO/UNDP estimates of
1996, the potential reserves of groundwater in the country is about 18 billion m3 per year.
Currently, about 3 billion m3 is under usage, and up to about 8 billion m3
more can be explored. Recently, especially during the drought years, there has been a large
development of groundwater use in agriculture and water supply in the country.
Hydrogelogically, Afghanistan as shown in Fig. 4 is divided into 3 hydrogeological regions:
1. Greet southern plains (Sistan Basin)
2. Central Highland region or hydrogeologically folding region (Hindu Kush ranges in its
broadest sense)
3. Northern Plains (Amu River basin).
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Figure 3. Watershed Basins in Afghanistan.

Figure 4. Hydrogeological Regions in Afghanistan

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Great Sistan Plain is situated in the vast sand dessert between the rivers of HelmandArghandab and the boarder line with Pakistan in the west. Because of minimum precipitation
and absence of surface water, the aquifer is very low productive and groundwater to be
brackish to saline. Depth of water bearing strata in the basin varies from 50 to more than 100 m
and the electro conductivity in some places exceeds 10,000 micromohs.
Highland Region in Afghanistan has 3 hydrogeological media. These are: the carbonate
massive, the non.carbonate complex and intermountain structures. The carbonate massive iscomposed of limestone and dolomite locally interbeded with sandstone /conglomerate.
Therefore, this structure is more or less karstified and there are occurrences of sinkholes, caves
and various caverns.
The non-carbonate complex, which includes all pre-quaternary formations are of limited
importance in terms of groundwater development aspect. Unfortunately, the largest part of thehighland region consists of such formations.
Intermountain structural and river basins are of the highest hydrogeological significances in thehighland regions. Either of the tectonic or erosion origin, they are in filled with alluvial andlocally glacial deposits saturated with groundwater.
Northern Plains located in the narrow belt along the Amu River; composed of fluvial and delta
deposits; saturated with fresh groundwater. Except for the hills of Hindu Kush Mountains,productivity of soil strata in terms of groundwater reserving is high.

III. Irrigation Systems in Afghanistan
Irrigation in Afghanistan is practiced by using both surface and groundwater.
Surface water is utilized for irrigation purpose in traditional and un-organized irrigation
systems. Traditional irrigation systems are established for centuries back in Afghanistan.
Maintenance and reconstruction are generally arranged on communal village basis. Technicalknowledge and operational system are thus dependent on traditional community structures.
The organized or the formal irrigation system or the organized large-scale irrigation system in
Afghanistan is relatively recent event. By late 1970s, five large-scale modern irrigation systems
were built and were put into operation. These are the Helamnd irrigation system in thesouthwest, Nangarhar in the east, Sardeh in the south, Kunduz-Khanabad in the north andParwan in central part of the country. The armed conflict and the drought have imposed great
influences on these irrigation systems and have malfunctioned a number of them. Location ofthese projects can be seen in Figure 5.

5Groundwater resources are also widely used for irrigation purpose in Afghanistan.
As per collected data, more than 15% of Afghanistan’s traditional irrigated land is fed fromgroundwater reservoirs. Water from this reservoir is discharged in springs, qanats and shallow
wells.

Figure 5. Organized Irrigation Schemes in Afghanistan.
Qanats are long tunnels dug horizontally in groundwater bearing formations of unconfined
aquifers. They are like infiltration galleries, with a mother well on the uppermost and several
access wells along its length. There are a total number of 6,741 qanats in the country that
irrigate around 167,750 hac of land.
Springs are also water source of irrigation. About 5,558 springs are known to exist inAfghanistan. These springs feed around 187,430 hac of land.
Shallow wells are other water source for irrigation. As per available data, before the war, there
were about 8,595 shallow wells for irrigation that could irrigate around 12,060 hac of land. But
because of war and destruction of water supply systems in the country, an unpredictabletendency resulted in drastic increase in the number of shallow wells. Only in Kabul, there areabout 130,000 shallow wells dug in private houses and public places for domestic water use.

6IV. Drought in Afghanistan
BackgroundAfghanistan is not regarded as drought prone country. However, droughts have been recorded
almost everywhere in different years. The most relevant one was recorded in 1970-71 in almost
all the country, but it particularly hit southwestern and northern regions. That drought resulted
in displacement of population, loss of animals and sever food shortage. Other droughts
happened in 1948 and 1955 in southern part of the country, 1961-62 in central parts and in1973 in central and northern regions and in 1977 in northwestern regions. Minor droughts havebeen recorded in 1981and 1992 in Ghazni, Ghore and Farah provinces. Drought hit areas
occurred during the time is shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Drought Record in Afghanistan
The recent drought is the only one that has caused unrecorded impacts. The recent drought
comparing with the previous droughts is multi-dimensional in its effect and severity. Thisworst drought has not been recorded in the last 50 years in Afghanistan. Drought occurredpreviously had affect only to some part of the country and had lasted for only maximum periodof 2 years. But the current drought has so far continued for 3 to 4 years. This has affected ruraland urban areas of Afghanistan, except for few places located in the valley along the perennialrivers.

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The droughts recorded so far in the country can be categorized as:- Local drought in small parts of the country; occurring each 3-5 years- Regional (zonal) drought occurring each 9-11 years- Countrywide droughts occurring each 20 to 30 years.

V. Effects of Current Drought
Livelihood
Preliminary estimates suggest that the current drought has imposed negative impacts on at least
half of population. 3 to 4 million people are affected severely; 8 to 12 million are under threatof famine and starvation. An estimated 700,000 people abandoned their houses in search offood, water and fodder (pasture); around 300000 have fled to neighboring countries and morethan 400,000 people (IDPs) have moved to the closest and safest places. Figure 7 shown
population movement inside and outside of Afghanistan.

Figure 7. Population movement inside and outside of Afghanistan.
Lack of water, food and shelter for IDPs has led to malnutrition, disease and death. According
to available reports, the acute malnutrition rate among children under 5 years of age is 24.6%
and mortality rate is recorded 2 people per 10,000 populations. Many of those who remained intheir houses in drought hit areas are those inhabitants who could not manage to move to otherplaces due to inability in covering transportation costs, lack of job opportunities, andmistreatment and abuse of refugees in the neighboring countries.

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As per FAO/UNDP estimates in 1997, due to continued war and instability in the country, outof 3.4 million hac of arable land in Afghanistan, only 30% is estimated to be cultivated. 20%
has poor on-farm water management, 10% is destroyed by war, 40% is damaged due to thelack of maintenance or abandoned by farmers.
In 2001, most of families consumed the seeds kept for sowing their land for the next year.
Consumption of wild food (wild sugar beet and wild grass) is wide spread among thepopulation of drought-hit areas. In some cases the situation is aggravated by the fact thatdistricts has no road link and can only be reached on horse back or on foot.
Precipitation During the Year 2001
The winter 2001 witnessed around 5 to 20 % more snowfall than the year before. However, due
to lack of spring rainfall and increase of air temperature, the snow reserves exhausted faster. At
the beginning of spring, the river discharges were higher than the year before, but decreased
drastically during spring. Amount of precipitation recorded as an example in Kabul during thedroughts of 1971, 1972, 2000 and 2001 is shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8. Precipitation in droughts of 1971, 1972, 2000, and 2001 with the Long term
Average Records.
The current drought has not much affected the discharge of main rivers with main discharge
forming basin above 4000 m asl, but the discharge of tributaries with lower catchment area areaffected. In these types of rivers, water can flow (lower than the normal discharge) up to theend of their normal destination. In territory of Afghanistan there is enough water for the land
adjacent to these rivers, and no affect of drought has been seen in their valleys. But the drought

9affects are seen in the adjacent valleys, where the main rivers do not provide irrigation water
but the tributaries.
The rivers with a main discharge forming catchment basin between 3000 to 4000 m asl haveenough water in the upper and middle parts, however, in lower parts, shortage of water isobserved noticeably. In all tributaries of these rivers shortage of water is acute.
The rivers with main discharge forming basins in an elevation lower than 3000 m asl an acuteshortage of water is seen. In some cases, the groundwater table in the valleys of these rivers hasdeclined. These types of rivers are mainly located in the northern, southwestern and southernpart of the country.
All valleys and low land plains with an altitude lower than 2000 m asl except for the valleys ofmain rivers crossing the area, which consist most of the rain fed lands are seriously affected by
the drought. According to reports from the field, all ephemeral rivers dried out in early springand perennial rivers in early or mid summer. Perennial rivers such as Helmand river (meandischarge of 196.26 m3/sec) in southwest, Farah Rud (mean discharge of 48.25 m3/sec) in thewest, Murghab River (mean discharge of 47 m3/sec) in northwest and Kunduz River (originalmean discharge of 106 m3/sec) in the north can now be crossed by foot.
During the recent drought water level in the existing reservoirs of the country has reached tothe critical and even some of them are dried completely. These reservoirs are Dahla inKandahar, Qargha (Kabul), Band-e-Ghazi (Kabul), Sorkhab and Kharwar (Logar), Sultan andSardeh (Ghazni).
The effect of drought in groundwater resources is also noticeable. As per an estimate, alltraditional irrigation systems have reduced or dried up completely. 60 to 70% of Qanats are notcurrently in use and 85% of shallow wells were dried out. The main reason for low discharge
or failure is the low groundwater recharge. In addition to this, boring of deep wells close toqanats and shallow wells imposed adverse effects on the discharge of these traditional
irrigation systems.
Food Production and Demand
In year 2001, at the beginning of spring, the river discharges were higher than the year beforeand hence; about 14% higher wheat was harvested than year 2000. This amount is still 25%less than production in 1999. Due to the lack of rainfall, production of rain fed crops (wheatand barely) have reduced significantly, about 40% less than year 2000. In some parts ofnorthern regions, the rain fed crops dried out completely. Due to 30% shortage of water flow in
Kunduz river, a significant reduction in the cultivation of paddy has also occurred. It is worthy

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to mention that Kunduz valley in the north is one of the best and main rice producers in thecountry.
Grazing (pasture) and livestock
Nomads and farmers due to drought and acute shortage of fodders, low growth or drying up ofpasture and lack of potable water in grazing area have sold or eaten an estimated 40%, in somecase they have exhausted their herd. Movement of nomads has occurred earlier in 2001 thanthe previous year. This is due to drying up of low land pasture. The drought has paralyzed
nomad activities as well.

References
Alim, A.K. 1996.
Water Supply Engineering-Vol. I. (in Dari, Persian)Peshawar, Pakistan, 409 pp.
Radojicic, S., 1977
“A Note on Water Resources of Afghanistan”
UNICEF/ WHO Assisted Rural Water Supply Project, Kabul, 32 pp11