RazorMC
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Why the head-bashing?
Alarming news from NASA: Groundwater basin under India Pakistan sinking rapidly.
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Yes agreed with the negative points but you have look at the situation in Pakistan. You see almost every few years there is a major flood and there is nothing to deal with this. The flood ruins more land and the water is simply drained into the sea (good for nothing). This makes it very difficult to manage water resource. If a couple of large dams are built then the flooding would be reduced or at least its impact will be minor with more water storage to be used during the whole year.
The Indus river system is very seasonal and almost all the water flows during the monsoon season (that is about 3 months) with a total flow of about 145 maf (million acre feet). On average I think 35 maf is drained to the sea. About 60 maf is lost during the transportation through the old canal system. Those two figures make up about 2/3 of the available surface water. So farms are getting about 50 maf of water out of this about 30 maf is lost in the fields due to flood irrigation. The farmers need to pump underground water (about 45 maf) in order to grow their crops.
Hoover dam has a water storage capacity of about 28.5 maf. That single dam has more water stored in it then all of the dams in Pakistan put together. Evaporation losses would be much less in Pakistan and even if there an maf of water is lost to evaporation then that is an acceptable loss for Pakistan looking at the current situation.
So if I had the power I will start with building large scale reservoirs in every province (I won't be fixated on Kalabagh as number of other sites available) and upgrade the canals and watercourses (lining them) at the same time. Educate farmers to grow crops intelligently (i.e. less water intensive crops), land grading etc. The next step would be to introduce drip irrigation across the whole country (large scale farmers can employ drip irrigation at any time). Benefits of this would be many fold. I will list a few:
- Build large scale reservoirs so the water can be captured which is drained to the sea, 35 maf on average.
- 10 maf of this can be drained to the sea but with Indus running constantly so that there is no sea water intrusion in the delta. So gaining about 25 maf on average.
- Water seepage will be minimal hence there would be less risk of water logging (it was the case for many areas in Pakistan)
- Less maintenance cost for the canal system
- Transportation losses would be reduced leaving more water for irrigation.
- No/less need for pumping ground water
- Less salinity
- As the water flow rates are higher than unlined canals there are more chances of producing power.
These smaller dams can be built regardless of the large ones. These will only enhance the ecology of the area.
kadamba-warrior
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Wonderfully well written.
Although I agree that the big dams have their utility (most importantly for drinking water for vast populations) and I can't argue that all big dams are bad, but the simplest solution of building small check dams has to start.
I said, if large dams could be built, they would have been - long ago. And I keep going back to the reasons why they can't be built. Same situation in India. Even a meter's increase in dam heights usually lead to large scale protests from people and between different states.
I don't think evaporation losses in Pakistan/India would be any less than those of Hoover Dam. Remember, we haven't taken into account evaporation losses during transportation using open canals and the quality of construction of our canals in Pakistan/India vis-a-vis USA. Our farm sizes also tend to be far smaller and hence less efficient. If you factor all of them in, I think the losses in the subcontinent might well be much bigger.
But in your defense, I also think that some of the evaporation can be mitigated by using covered/underground water canals like in the olden arid/desert states (or even better, by using the canal-top solar panels).
Of course! Intelligent water usage is the only way forward. No amount of dams would ever be sufficient if the farmers are hell bent on wasting the most precious albeit the least appreciated resource.
Have you ever considered that the more water you store in these thousands of small storage dams, the less runoff you will get into your large dams - since the amount of rain is finite and almost constant per year (bar exceptions)?
Also, considering that the amount of rains keeps reducing due to climate changes, the large dams might even end up empty most of the times. There are already many such instances in the Southern Indian dams. Some of them are really big but hardly ever fill up to the capacity!
I have been a big-dam advocate myself but my opinions have evolved over the last few years in favor or smaller dams. I recommend you also to watch the documentary DamNation.
Although I agree that the big dams have their utility (most importantly for drinking water for vast populations) and I can't argue that all big dams are bad, but the simplest solution of building small check dams has to start.
I said, if large dams could be built, they would have been - long ago. And I keep going back to the reasons why they can't be built. Same situation in India. Even a meter's increase in dam heights usually lead to large scale protests from people and between different states.
I don't think evaporation losses in Pakistan/India would be any less than those of Hoover Dam. Remember, we haven't taken into account evaporation losses during transportation using open canals and the quality of construction of our canals in Pakistan/India vis-a-vis USA. Our farm sizes also tend to be far smaller and hence less efficient. If you factor all of them in, I think the losses in the subcontinent might well be much bigger.
But in your defense, I also think that some of the evaporation can be mitigated by using covered/underground water canals like in the olden arid/desert states (or even better, by using the canal-top solar panels).
Of course! Intelligent water usage is the only way forward. No amount of dams would ever be sufficient if the farmers are hell bent on wasting the most precious albeit the least appreciated resource.
Have you ever considered that the more water you store in these thousands of small storage dams, the less runoff you will get into your large dams - since the amount of rain is finite and almost constant per year (bar exceptions)?
Also, considering that the amount of rains keeps reducing due to climate changes, the large dams might even end up empty most of the times. There are already many such instances in the Southern Indian dams. Some of them are really big but hardly ever fill up to the capacity!
I have been a big-dam advocate myself but my opinions have evolved over the last few years in favor or smaller dams. I recommend you also to watch the documentary DamNation.
Hamartia Antidote
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Rain Harvesting
Rain harvesting is collecting rain from roofs and other surfaces to store for later use for landscape irrigation. The harvested water is non-potable, but can be used to irrigate your garden throughout the dry summer and reduce the water used from the tap.
You can calculate potential harvest with this calculation: To estimate the amount of water you can collect from your roof use this calculation:
Area of roof in square feet × 0.625 gallons of water = gallons caught per inch of rain.
Using this calculation, a 1,000 square foot roof would drain 625 gallons for an inch of rain. The City of Watsonville averages about 22.41” of rain per year (less in 2013), which means a harvesting system draining a 1000 square foot roof could potentially collect ≈14,006 gallons in an average rainfall year, if it had the capacity to store that much water.
PVWater.org Webkits
Rain Water Harvesting solutions in india
As long as your roof isn't made out of something you don't want in your water (Zinc coated nails, asphalt shingles, etc)
I am very tempted to use rain barrels for my garden but I know my roof has the above and that isn't something I want to be spraying on food or drinking.
VCheng
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Global Groundwater Basins in Distress : Image of the Day
About one third of Earth’s large groundwater basins are being rapidly depleted by human consumption even though we have scarce and inaccurate data about how much water remains in them, according to two new studies published in June 2015 in Water Resources Research. This means significant segments of Earth’s population are consuming groundwater without knowing when it might run out.
“Groundwater is currently the primary source of freshwater for approximately two billion people,” the researchers wrote. “Despite its importance, knowledge on the state of large groundwater systems is limited as compared to surface water, largely because the cost and complexity of monitoring large aquifer systems is often prohibitive.”
The map above shows the annual change in groundwater storage from 2003 to 2013 in the 37 largest aquifer systems in the world. Basins shown in shades of brown have had more water extracted in the study years than could be naturally replenished; basins in blue saw increases in underground water storage, perhaps due to changes in precipitation, ice or permafrost melting, or changes in surface water.
The study was partly based on data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), a pair of satellites that flies in close formation and measures small changes in mass and gravity near Earth’s surface. Water has mass and exerts a gravitational tug; GRACE observes those signals in ways that allow scientists to follow the movement of water—including groundwater—around the planet. The studies also included data from ground-based sources (such as national statistics on water extraction) and models of groundwater extraction and storage. The analysis was conducted by scientists from the University of California, Irvine, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, National Taiwan University, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The multidisciplinary research team found that 13 of Earth’s 37 largest aquifers are being depleted while receiving little to no recharge. Eight were classified as “overstressed,” with almost no natural replenishment to offset usage, while the other five were found to be highly stressed, with that rate of extraction far exceeding the little bit of natural replenishment. Climate change and population growth are expected to intensify the problem.
“What happens when a highly stressed aquifer is located in a region with socioeconomic or political tensions that can't supplement declining water supplies fast enough?” asked Alexandra (Sasha) Richey, the lead author on both studies, who conducted the research while she was a doctoral student at UC Irvine. “We are trying to raise red flags now to pinpoint where active management today could protect future lives and livelihoods.”
The most overburdened aquifers are found in the world’s driest areas, where populations draw heavily on underground water. The Arabian Aquifer System, an important water source for more than 60 million people, is the most overstressed in the world. The Indus Basin aquifer of northwestern India and Pakistan is the second-most overstressed, and the Murzuk-Djado Basin in northern Africa is third. Previous research has shown that California’s Central Valley, used heavily for agriculture, has been suffering rapid depletion.
“We don't actually know how much is stored in each of these aquifers. Our current estimates mostly date back to very crude methods developed in the 1960s and 1970s. Few aquifers have improved their storage estimates, and those that have still carry a huge range and uncertainty,” said Richey, who is now a post-doctoral fellow at Washington State University. In the Northwest Sahara Aquifer, for example, “time to depletion” estimates vary from 10 years to 21,000 years. “In a water-scarce society, we can no longer tolerate this level of uncertainty, especially since groundwater is disappearing so rapidly.”
Groundwater aquifers are typically located in soils or deeper rock layers beneath Earth's surface. The depth and thickness of many large aquifers can make it tough and costly to drill to bedrock and understand where the moisture bottoms out. But it has to be done, the authors say.
“Available physical and chemical measurements are simply insufficient,” said UCI professor and principal investigator Jay Famiglietti, who is also the senior water scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Given how quickly we are consuming the world's groundwater reserves, we need a coordinated global effort to determine how much is left.”
About one third of Earth’s large groundwater basins are being rapidly depleted by human consumption even though we have scarce and inaccurate data about how much water remains in them, according to two new studies published in June 2015 in Water Resources Research. This means significant segments of Earth’s population are consuming groundwater without knowing when it might run out.
“Groundwater is currently the primary source of freshwater for approximately two billion people,” the researchers wrote. “Despite its importance, knowledge on the state of large groundwater systems is limited as compared to surface water, largely because the cost and complexity of monitoring large aquifer systems is often prohibitive.”
The map above shows the annual change in groundwater storage from 2003 to 2013 in the 37 largest aquifer systems in the world. Basins shown in shades of brown have had more water extracted in the study years than could be naturally replenished; basins in blue saw increases in underground water storage, perhaps due to changes in precipitation, ice or permafrost melting, or changes in surface water.
The study was partly based on data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), a pair of satellites that flies in close formation and measures small changes in mass and gravity near Earth’s surface. Water has mass and exerts a gravitational tug; GRACE observes those signals in ways that allow scientists to follow the movement of water—including groundwater—around the planet. The studies also included data from ground-based sources (such as national statistics on water extraction) and models of groundwater extraction and storage. The analysis was conducted by scientists from the University of California, Irvine, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, National Taiwan University, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The multidisciplinary research team found that 13 of Earth’s 37 largest aquifers are being depleted while receiving little to no recharge. Eight were classified as “overstressed,” with almost no natural replenishment to offset usage, while the other five were found to be highly stressed, with that rate of extraction far exceeding the little bit of natural replenishment. Climate change and population growth are expected to intensify the problem.
“What happens when a highly stressed aquifer is located in a region with socioeconomic or political tensions that can't supplement declining water supplies fast enough?” asked Alexandra (Sasha) Richey, the lead author on both studies, who conducted the research while she was a doctoral student at UC Irvine. “We are trying to raise red flags now to pinpoint where active management today could protect future lives and livelihoods.”
The most overburdened aquifers are found in the world’s driest areas, where populations draw heavily on underground water. The Arabian Aquifer System, an important water source for more than 60 million people, is the most overstressed in the world. The Indus Basin aquifer of northwestern India and Pakistan is the second-most overstressed, and the Murzuk-Djado Basin in northern Africa is third. Previous research has shown that California’s Central Valley, used heavily for agriculture, has been suffering rapid depletion.
“We don't actually know how much is stored in each of these aquifers. Our current estimates mostly date back to very crude methods developed in the 1960s and 1970s. Few aquifers have improved their storage estimates, and those that have still carry a huge range and uncertainty,” said Richey, who is now a post-doctoral fellow at Washington State University. In the Northwest Sahara Aquifer, for example, “time to depletion” estimates vary from 10 years to 21,000 years. “In a water-scarce society, we can no longer tolerate this level of uncertainty, especially since groundwater is disappearing so rapidly.”
Groundwater aquifers are typically located in soils or deeper rock layers beneath Earth's surface. The depth and thickness of many large aquifers can make it tough and costly to drill to bedrock and understand where the moisture bottoms out. But it has to be done, the authors say.
“Available physical and chemical measurements are simply insufficient,” said UCI professor and principal investigator Jay Famiglietti, who is also the senior water scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Given how quickly we are consuming the world's groundwater reserves, we need a coordinated global effort to determine how much is left.”
- References and Related Reading
- NASA Earth Observatory (2012, September 12) The Gravity of Water.
- Richey, A.S. et al. (2015) Quantifying renewable groundwater stress with GRACE. Water Resources Research, 51.
- Richey, A.S. et al. (2015) Uncertainty in global groundwater storage estimates in a Total Groundwater Stress framework. Water Resources Research, 51.
Thank you for liking the post. A bit busy today but will reply to your post. I need to do a bit of analysis as well!
Yes totally agree with small check dams and ponds/lakes which will certainly help recharge the aquifers as well as improving the ecology of the area. I have seen small ponds in southern Punjab which are used to store water for animals as well as for humans. The problem with these small dams is the distribution of rain and timing of rain. Southern Punjab, Sindh and Parts of Baluchistan will not get much rain through out the year.
You can see from the above map that the majority of the rain is concentrated in the northern parts of the country and believe it or not small check dams won't be able to hold that much water. Please follow the link for more detailed analysis. It is old but will give you an idea of rain pattern.
http://www.pmd.gov.pk/rnd/rnd_files/vol8_issue17/4.pdf
There are many sites in Pakistan with very little to no population that can be turned into larger reservoirs. It may not be the case in India.
Even if the evaporation losses are similar to Hoover dam I will still stress the need for large scale dams. I have also said that the canals need to be lined which will reduce the losses. I haven't had the time to calculate the cost of upgrading the entire canal system (i.e. lining it) but for now I have figures for Canal for the Ghazi Brotha Dam which had a final cost of about $366 million in 2003. That Canal is the largest in the world with 1600 Cumecs flow (51.9 km long).
Solar Panels is a good idea but an expensive one. The benefits again will be many fold. It will save land, produce energy and it will also reduce evaporation losses. This can be applied to canals in southern Punjab and probably whole of Sindh and Baluchistan.
Yes I have and in my previous post I have said that the Indus water system is mostly snow/glacier melt water and small check dams will make a difference but to a very small extent. It is always good to have spare capacity for water storage for the flooding years. Imagine a 2010 flood and having a massive storage facility? The water can be stored for years when there is a drought or even for recharging the aquifers.
Situation in Pakistan is totally different it needs water reservoirs for food security for the growing population as well as flood control measures and without large dams that is not possible.
Can you please send me the link to that documentary?
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kadamba-warrior
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Yes totally agree with small check dams and ponds/lakes which will certainly help recharge the aquifers as well as improving the ecology of the area. I have seen small ponds in southern Punjab which are used to store water for animals as well as for humans. The problem with these small dams is the distribution of rain and timing of rain. Southern Punjab, Sindh and Parts of Baluchistan will not get much rain through out the year.
You can see from the above map that the majority of the rain is concentrated in the northern parts of the country and believe it or not small check dams won't be able to hold that much water. Please follow the link for more detailed analysis. It is old but will give you an idea of rain pattern.
http://www.pmd.gov.pk/rnd/rnd_files/vol8_issue17/4.pdf
There are many sites in Pakistan with very little to no population that can be turned into larger reservoirs. It may not be the case in India.
Even if the evaporation losses are similar to Hoover dam I will still stress the need for large scale dams. I have also said that the canals need to be lined which will reduce the losses. I haven't had the time to calculate the cost of upgrading the entire canal system (i.e. lining it) but for now I have figures for Canal for the Ghazi Brotha Dam which had a final cost of about $366 million in 2003. That Canal is the largest in the world with 1600 Cumecs flow (51.9 km long).
Solar Panels is a good idea but an expensive one. The benefits again will be many fold. It will save land, produce energy and it will also reduce evaporation losses. This can be applied to canals in southern Punjab and probably whole of Sindh and Baluchistan.
Yes I have and in my previous post I have said that the Indus water system is mostly snow/glacier melt water and small check dams will make a difference but to a very small extent. It is always good to have spare capacity for water storage for the flooding years. Imagine a 2010 flood and having a massive storage facility? The water can be stored for years when there is a drought or even for recharging the aquifers.
Situation in Pakistan is totally different it needs water reservoirs for food security for the growing population as well as flood control measures and without large dams that is not possible.
Can you please send me the link to that documentary?
Again wonderful analysis with figures!
But you need to watch the movie/documentary below for a different perspective on Dams (specifically those which are not planned with long term view in mind).
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qamar1990
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not like its being exported... its being used by pakistanis
AZADPAKISTAN2009
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Basin gets refilled when floods come
qamar1990
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i think every town and village and city should have eco water towers that capture rain water and also that could be filled up with traditional methods.
for every few thousand people they should build 1 tower. i dont think
for every few thousand people they should build 1 tower. i dont think
well then thats a relief, problem solved.
Super Falcon
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These people only save their sears in parlimdnt they dont have iq level which requires to be leader
Malik Alashter
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I have question please, is the distlled water good for human to consume?.
RazorMC
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And what about the soil drying up at a faster rate than it can be replenished? What happens to our agricultural output in a couple of decades?
The problem with us is we only look at short-term problems and solutions. This is why we are where we are.
RAMPAGE
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Build storage dams godammit!
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