IRSA approves anticipated water availability criteria

RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: The advisory committee of the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) has approved the Rabi 2020-21 anticipated water availability criteria from Oct 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021.

IRSA KP chairman/member Engr Syed Zahid Abbas presided over the meeting held hereon Thursday.

The IRSA Advisory Committee discussed the recommendations of the IRSA Technical Committee Meeting held on Sep 25, and approved the following likely anticipated water availability for Rabi 2020-21:

a) Rim Station Inflows:

MAF

i. Indus @ Tarbela = 8.574

ii. Kabul @ Nowshera = 4.326

iii. Jhelum @ Mangla = 4.902

iv. Chenab @ Marala = 4.442

v. Eastern Rivers Component = 1.200

vi. Total = 23.444

Based on the above rim station inflows plus storage release of 12.054 MAF, minus the expected system losses of 2.487 MAF, and minor involuntary escape downstream Kotri of 0.044 MAF, the approved likely availability at respective provincial canal heads was approved as:

MAF

(a) Punjab = 17.813

(b) Sindh = 13.433

(c) KP (CRBC) = 0.701 Exempted from

(d) Balochistan = 1.022 Shortages

(e) Total = 32.968

The above-mentioned likely availability at canal heads of 32.968 MAF was 13 percent higher than last year’s availability of 29.20 MAF, and nine percent higher than 10-year’s average of 30.22 MAF.

The Basin-wide shortage was approved as 10 percent, which was less than previous Rabi 2019-2020’s forecasted shortage of 15 percent and actual shortage of 20 percent.

It was agreed by the participants that the likely projected shortages were manageable and hopefully the cropping targets for Rabi 2020-2021 would be achieved by applying efficient and best water management practices.

It was also decided that remaining within the above indicated likely shares; the provinces would submit their withdrawal plans within 15 days.

The IRSA Advisory Committee also approved additional allocation of 0.149 MAF for Kachhi Canal of Balochistan.

However, carry-over storage of 0.5MAF for early Kharif 2021 was linked with mid-season-review of the anticipated Rabi Criteria 2020-2021, and in case of better inflows carry-over storage provision would be revisited.

The IRSA Advisory Committee reviewed the Kharif 2020 system operation and observed that the actual Rim-Station inflows of 97.80MAF remained 10 percent less than forecasted volume of 108.24 MAF.

Despite reduction in inflows, the committee expressed satisfaction that the actual provincial withdrawals remained at 65.106MAF, and provinces got indented supplies. Both Tarbela and Mangla reservoirs were filled to their maximum capacity on August 28, 2020, by efficient and integrated operation of the IRSA, despite below normal inflows.

The actual system losses were 12.374 MAF as compared to anticipation of 17.633 MAF and downstream Kotri releases remained 14.698 MAF.

The committee appreciated the flushing of sediments from the reservoir carried out in last ten-daily of August, 2020.

It was expected that this flushing operation would reclaim considerable lost storage volume.

The committee also valued the facilitation of IRSA and the role of Flood Mitigation Committee (FMC) of Mangla reservoir in mitigating of flood peaks in late August 2020, successfully.

The Committee was apprised that Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) - within the umbrella of Australian Aid, and under supervision of the IRSA, the MoWR, the WAPDA, and focal persons of the provinces, - had prepared a software named as Water Apportionment (WAA) Tool, which forecasted Rim-Station inflows and performed system operation by running the reservoirs on set rules, routing the flows in the river network with accompanying losses/gains, allocating shares to the provinces on different sharing options and releasing excess water downstream Kotri, if available.

It followed the same statistical and analytical techniques as manually adopted by IRSA and thus, saved a lot of time by calculating system operation in a matter of seconds.

With this ease of fast computing, the tool had the capacity to calculate and present with different system operation scenarios, which previously consumed a lot of time.

The Committee was informed that calculations of the Tool for Anticipated Criteria Rabi 2020-2021 matched exactly with the assessments of the IRSA and that the shortage predicted by the Tool was also 10 percent.

The Committee appreciated the efforts of the CSIRO, the IRSA and all others involved in the development of the WAA Tool.

It was also agreed that the IRSA would impart briefing to the PIDs regarding the development and working of the WAA Tool.

Other participants were Engr Rao Irshad Ali Khan, Member IRSA Punjab, Engr Zahid Hussain Junejo, Member IRSA Sindh, Engr Asjad Imtiaz Ali, Member IRSA Federal, Engr Abdul Hameed Mengal, Member IRSA Balochistan, Ahmed Kamal, CEA; CFFC, Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR), Saif Anjum, Secretary Irrigation Dept, Punjab, Janat Gul, Spl Secretary, Agriculture Dept, KPK, Jamaluddin Mangan, Additional Secretary (T), Irrigation Dept, Sindh, Fareed Ahmed Mughal, GM, TDO, WAPDA, Jamil Akhtar, GM (Power), Tarbela, WAPDA, Muhammad Awais, GM (HRM), WAPDA, Muhammad Khalid Idrees Rana, Director (Opr), IRSA, Agha Ehsan Ullah, Director Regulation, Irrigation Deptt, Sindh, Engr Riaz Ahmed Baloch, SE Patfeeder Canal, Irrigation Deptt, Balochistan, and Engr Zahoor Muhammad, SE (H/Q)/Director Hydrology, Irrigation Dept, KP.