COUNTRY REPORT AFGAHNISTAN
Presented by Lutfullah “Amarkhail”
Nationality : Afghan
Name of the organization : Ministry of Energy& Water Kabul Afghanistan
Department : General Planning & donors Coordination Department.
Phone:+93(0)772848968
Email : lutfullah_eirp@yahoo.com
GENERAL INFORMATION OF
AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan is a mountainous country and locked
in center of Asia, between Latitude 29. 35’ to 38.40’ Longitude
60.31’ to 75.5’ E
 The average elevation of the country varies from 200 to 7750
m from the mean sea level, its total area is 653000 Sq Km
Afghanistan is bounded in the North by Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, the Northeast with republic of
China, East with Islamic republic of Pakistan, and the West
with Islamic republic of Iran.
 Out of the total area of Afghanistan, about 75% covered with
mountains range, the highest of them located in eastern side
are famous Hindu Kosh, Koh-e Baba, Tirband-e Turkistan,
Feroz Koh, Koh-e Solaiman. Koh-e Chakabi and the high
Pamir , whose peaks are mostly covered with snows all the
time. And the rest 25% consist of large deserts.

RIVER BASIN OF AFGHANISTAN

Afghanistan is consist of five river basins
- Kabul River Basin
- Helmand River Basin
- Northern River Basin
- Western River Basin ( Harirud Murghab)
- Panj-Amu River Basin
RIVER BASIN MAP OFAFGHANISTAN
Amu River Basin
North River Basin
Kabul River Basin
Wester River Basin
Helmand River Basin
River-region.shp
River-line.shp
Major basins and main branch watersheds.shp
Hari Rod
Hilmand
Kabul
Northeastern Basin
Northern Basin
Sistan
South Eastern Basin
Southern Basin
N
W
400
0
400
E
800 Kilometers
S
SELECTION OF WADI BASIN OF AFGHANISTAN
Based on the discussion of Eng. Sayed Sharif and Dr.
Qunli Director of Tehran UNESCO in Tehran
 It has been agreed to select Kabul river Basin as WADI
basin from Afghanistan

Based on the available information I have prepared
brief presentation on Kabul River basin.
 Due to Civil war and conflicts most of the data has
been lost.
 Since coming of new government some data has been
collected ,it is not enough

Water & Development Information for
arid lands
Name of the basin, Kabul River Basin
 Country Name, Afghanistan

Name of the Resource Persons
 Sayed
Rasekhudin
 Nationality : Afghan
 Name of the organization : Ministry of
Energy& Water
 Director of Water Resources Planning Unit
(WRPU).
 Email : rasekh.eirp@gmail.com
 Chief Engineer Sayed Sharif Shobair
 Nationality: Afghan
 Name of the Organization: FAO
 Email: Sayed.Sharif@eirp-afg.org
General information on Kabul River Basin
KABUL RIVER BASIN
The Kabul river basin lies in the northeast quarter of
Afghanistan . The river flows west to east, joining the
Indus river in Pakistan it encompasses just 12% of the
area of Afghanistan it accounts for 35 % of the
population, and has the fastest population growth rate in
the country.
 The northern or left flank of the basin is extremely
mountainous, while the southern portions drain mainly
low mountain ranges, foothills and plains
 The eastern portion of the basin includes extensive but
rapidly diminishing forests that comprise nearly 93 % of
the country's forest area. Rangeland is limited to
approximately 13% of the national total, as is rain fed
agriculture, which accounts for only 3.55 of the country's
total rain fed agricultural area.

 Irrigated
land in the basin with intensive
cultivation of one or two crops per year is
currently estimated to be 150000 hectares, or
nearly 20% of the estimated 1.56 million
hectares of irrigated area in Afghanistan.
 The climate of the basin is characterized by
cold winters with maximum precipitation from
November to May, and warm to very hot
summers with little or no precipitation or
stream flow, except in rivers and streams fed
by melting snow and glaciers. Rainfall is
highly variable throughout the basin.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Kabul River Basin is consist of nine provinces as
follows:
Kabul
Parwan
Kapisa
Panjsher
Logar
Maidan
Jalal abad
Konar
Laghman
KABUL RIVER BASIN MAP
Nuristan
Ñ
Parwan
Ñ
Kapisa
Ñ
Kunar
Ñ
Ñ
Laghman
Kabul
Ñ
Wardak
Ñ
Ñ
Nangarhar
Logar
Ñ
Ñ
Theme69 .shp
Kabul Riv er Basin
KABUL
KAPISA
KUNAR
LAGHMAN
LOGAR
NANGARHAR
NURISTAN
PARWAN
WARDAK
N
E
W
S
200
0
200
400 Kilometers
KABUL RIVER BASIN CONSIST
MAJOR SUB BASIN
Panjsher sub Basin
 Logar sub Basin
 Lower Kabul sub Basin

OF THREE
KABUL RIVER SUB BASINS
HYDROLOGICAL AND WATER MANAGEMENT
ISSUES
Before 1980 , 142 hydrological stations were installed in all
over Afghanistan, but due to war and conflict all station
have been destroyed
 Before 1980 historical hydrology data is available for the
period of 1965-1980 and the resolution is daily
 Since 2008 till now 106 hydrological stations have been
installed and 26 are located in the Kabul river basin. The
data is under compiling processing and developing the new
rating curves.
 before 1980 water had good management and the peoples’
were irrigated their land by traditional irrigation canals ,
but most of them were destroyed.
 Right now most of the irrigation canals are repaired and
water management is almost in good condition


But in drought year farmers are encountering
with lack of water problems, because lack of the
reservoirs. The water management department is
working on in order to have good water
management.
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

1.
2.
In the Kabul River Basin we have two
environmental issues
The Environmental flow for the Kabul river
basin especially through the Kabul city. The
upper part of the basin is intermediate river, we
need to ensure the environmental flow through
the year.
In the upper part of the basin we have a lake,
before it was active but due to drought it has
been dried. It need to consider it in the future.
LIVELIHOODS ISSUES


Most of Afghanistan population are living in the
Kabul river basin and 65% of this population are
living along the river.
Major peoples’ are busy with the agriculture .
POLICY AND LEGISLATION ISSUES
Water policy has been prepared and based on
that the Integrated Water Resources
Management (IWRM) is implementing.
 River basin council and sub basin council have
been structured and they are responsible for the
river basin ligislations
 Water user associations have been made.

GEOGRAPHICAL PROPERTIES
Longitude(71o 02’) Latitude (34o 14’) at down stream
river outlet.
 Topography most area of Kabul river is mountainous
and elevation is from 550-6800msl.
 Size of the basin 67370Km2
 Irrigated area of Kabul basin , almost 150000 Ha
 Current Per Capita water use 60 lpcd

LONG TERM MONTHLY MEAN PRECIPITATION
IN KABUL RIVER BASIN
Monthly Mean Precipitation (mm)
Kabul River Basin
90.00
80.00
70.00
Monthly
60.00
Mean
50.00
Precipitatio 40.00
n (mm)
30.00
20.00
10.00
0.00
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Jan
Mar
May
Jul
Sep
Months of Year
Nov
Nov
Precipitation distribution through the
Kabul river basin
Asmar
1200.00
Behsood
1000.00
800.00
Jabul Seraj
Jalalabad
600.00
Kabul
Karezmir
400.00
Laghman
200.00
Logar
Sorubi
oo
d
bu
lS
er
aj
Ja
la
la
ba
d
K
ab
ul
K
ar
ez
La mir
gh
m
an
Lo
ga
r
So So
ru
ut
b
h
Sa i
la
Pa ng
gh
m
an
Ja
eh
s
B
sm
ar
0.00
A
Annual Precipitation (mm)
Annual Precipitation of Kabul River Basin (mm)
Name of the Station
South Salang
Paghman
DEMOGRAPHIC PROPERTIES
 General
Location of the Basin( Northeast
Quarter of Afghanistan
 Total Population in the basin(8.9 Million)
 Population Below Poverty Line 60% of
basin population are bellow poverty
DEMOGRAPHICS LAND USE
The KRB includes 23 % of the settlements
in Afghanistan & approximately 35 % of
the country’s population. The population
density in the basin averages 93 % per sq.
km.
Provinces Constituting the Kabul River Basin:
Total Population by Province including Refugees (000's)
Province
Males
Females
Total
Refugee
UNHCR
Total
Population
% of Total
Kabul
1729.1
1584.7
3313.8
656.4
3970.2
48.5
Logar
149.5
142
291.5
26.6
318.2
3.9
Wardak
211.8
201.2
413
12.3
425.3
5.2
Parwan
372.8
353.6
726.4
101.4
827.8
10.1
Kapisa
184.5
175.2
359.7
23
382.7
4.7
Nangarhar
559.6
529.5
1089.1
313.9
1403.0
17.1
Konar
164.7
156.5
321.2
11.0
332.2
4.0
Laghman
191.1
181.5
372.6
38.8
411.4
5.0
Nuristan
57.3
54.4
111.7
0.10
111.8
1.4
URBAN & RURAL POPULATION IN THE KABUL RIVER BASIN
No
Province
Urban
Rural
Total
Est. growth
rate(%)
(1979-2003)
1
Kabul
2,839,100
615,900
3445000
3.91
2
Parwan
7,800
307,600
315400
1.58
3
Kapisa
3,200
445,500
448700
1.87
4
Wardak
37200
700,000
337200
1.59
5
Logar
1,900
363,000
364.900
1.58
6
Kunar
101,700
1,004,000
1,105700
1.56
7
Nangarhar
3,300
324,800
328100
1.14
8
Laghman
6,200
371900
378100
0.82
9
Nuristan
0
111600
111600
0
30,000,400
4,244,300
7,244,700
Total
LAND USES: PRINCIPAL LAND USES,
AS PERCENTAGE OF BASIN AREA
Mountains: Out of the total area of Afghanistan, about
75%
 Desert 25%
 Wetlands (1.90%)
 Agriculture (3.55)
 Irrigated area 150000 ha
 Urban area
- three major cities are urban area in the Kabul Basin
1. Kabul 2. Jalalabad 3. Parwan

ENVIRONMENTAL PROPERTIES IN
KABUL RIVER BASIN
No
Name of Province
Wetlands Km2
Wetlands %
1
Parwan
0.6
0.00
2
Kabul
2.9
0.10
3
Kapisa
-
0.00
4
Kunar
15.4
0.30
5
Laghman
19.8
0.50
6
Logar
1.5
0.00
7
Nangarhar
79.8
1.00
8
Nuristan
2.9
0.00
9
Wardak
2.5
0.00
125.4
1.90
Total
METEOROLOGICAL AND SNOW
GAUGING STATIONS





Based on the location, representative importance
and historical background selection has been done.
30 Automatic weather stations are proposed as
Meteorological stations.
40 Snow gauging stations are proposed for snow survey
The meteorological stations will have sensors for
precipitation, air temperature, relative humidity, wind
speed & direction, solar radiation and evaporation.
The snow stations will be located at or above elevation
of about 2500m.
HYDRO METEOROLOGICAL NETWORKS







Present data collection in the new purposed hydrological
station it is recording in every 15 minutes.
Rainfall data is recording in every 15 minutes.
Lack of telemetry service it is not send to MEW in real
time.
Since 1980 till now the update data is not available
From 68 meteorological station data is available before
1980 years. it is tabulated in excel program
Monthly mean precipitation data is tabulated in Excel
program
Relative humidity data it has been tabulated in Excel
program
RAINFALL FORECASTS
All forecasting department for the hydrometeorological elements and among them
precipitations due to war, are damaged for the
present time we don’t have forecasting
department in the country.
 Up to now we have not taken from other source
 We have made the maps of precipitation
distribution in the territory of our country
 For this purpose we have used the observation
material of 70 meteorological station having more
then 10 years observations.

FLOOD FORECAST
Due to shortage of forecasters and observation
materials , human and technical capacity we are
not able to forecast.
 No soft ware is available
 Still no progress and development in the flood
forecasting

Thank you for your attention