Development of water resources in the Kabul River Basin

Water is one of the main wheels for developing Afghanistan’s economy and bringing the nation out of poverty. Its free flow must be managed through a proper water management system and approach that can be done by building dams on River Kabul.
The Kabul River rises in the Hindu Kush Mountains and receives substantial flows from several rivers which measures 700 kilometres long, it flows 460 kilometres inside Afghanistan and 240 kilometres in Pakistan.
Afghanistan has abundant water resources. 80 per cent of such resources come from surface water that flows from snowfields and glaciers in the Hindu Kush and Himalayan mountains.
Despite ample water resources, Afghanistan has been categorized among the high-risk country in the Water Stress Index which shows that the country is incapable to consume its annual water supplies generated from precipitation, rivers, and groundwater.
Years of internal conflicts in the country wasted the opportunity to draw a water management system in Afghanistan in which almost 12 billion cubic meters of the Kabul river flow into Pakistan free of cost every year.
On the other hand, four-fifths of Afghanistan’s population of 38 million depend on farming and horticulture. The recent drought and climate changes have badly damaged the sector, reducing the cultivated area from 10.8 million acres in 1978 to 4.6 million acres in 2002 with further reduction in the recent decade.
More importantly, around six million residents of Kabul and Jalalabad depend on the Kabul River for all their water needs. Indeed, such water can be used for hydropower plants to produce energy as well.
Afghanistan suffers from a severe shortage of electricity which imports 80 per cent of its electricity from its neighbours.
Constructing barrages on the Kabul River is associated with many supremacies, it stores water when precipitation is at its peak, suppresses flood, waters agriculture, and produces competitive, and clean energy.