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RIVER JHELUM

KEY FACTS

RIVER FLOW PATTERN

The Jhelum is a large eastern tributary of the Indus. It drains areas west of Pir Panjal separating Jammu and Kashmir. The Jhelum rises from the spring of Verinag, on the northwestern side of Pir Panjal and flows in a direction parallel to the Indus at an average elevation of 5,500 feet. It drains about 2,300 square miles of alluvial lands in the Kashmir Valley and gets water from various important sources including glaciers located in the north of the valley.

The river first flows through Dal Lake and then an even bigger lake - Wular Lake, into which it drops coarse grades of sediment. On emergence from the Wular Lake near Baramula, it runs through an eighty-mile long gorge at an average slope of 33 feet per mile. At Domel, near Muzaffarabad, the river is joined by its largest tributary, Neelum (earlier called the Kishan Ganga), which drains about 2800 square miles of hilly area lying on the eastern side of the Nanga Parbat. The Neelum drains Himalayan ranges between 15,000 to 20,000 feet high that are perpetually covered by snow and glaciers. In the lower reaches, the 150-mile long river flows through mountainous country covered by forests.

Five miles below the Domel, the Kunhar, another tributary, joins the River Jhelum, draining nearly 1,080 square miles of the famous Kaghan Valley. Sources of River Kunar lie at about 15,000 to 17,000 feet above sea level. 80 of its total length of about a 100 miles are situated in the hills where it falls at nearly 120 feet per mile, forming innumerable rapids and flowing through the Lalusar Lake. One of Kunar's tributaries also flows through the famous Saif-ul-Molook Lake.

From Domel to Mangla, a distance of about 90 miles, two streams, the Kanshi and Poonch join the River Jhelum. The Kanshi is a floodwater stream draining eroded areas of the Jhelum and Rawalpindi districts. This stream carries mainly monsoon rain or seepage water. The Poonch is an important stream joining the Jhelum at Tangrot, about seven miles above Mangla. The site where the two rivers meet used to be a famous fishing spot but now lies within the storage area of the Mangla Dam.

The Poonch drains the southern sides of Pir Panjal, which ranges between 10,000 to 12,000 feet in height and becomes snow bound during winter. Its catchment area of 1,520 sq. miles is partly covered by forests. The river flows through hilly country for its entire length of 80 miles and drains the areas of Poonch, Kotli and Mirpur.

The Mangla Dam has been constructed near the head regulator of Upper Jhelum Canal. From Mangla down to Rasul, several floodwater streams drain into the Jhelum. The Kahan Nullah is nearly forty miles long and drains the Rohtas area, where an auxiliary storage of Mangla Dam was considered. Suketar, Jaba Kas and Bunha are three of the many floodwater nullahs that drain into the Jhelum, through a level crossing of Upper Jhelum Canal.

IMPORTANT TRIBUTARIES AND THEIR CATCHMENT AREAS

STRUCTURES ON THE JHELUM

AVERAGE FLOWS IN JHELUM

The Indus River System Authority compiles the river flow data. The annual average flows are calculated by averaging the daily flows. The kharif data represents the April 01 - September 30 period and the rabi data is based on flows between October 01 - March 31 of the following year.

Data collected for the Jhelum collected at Mangla for 40 years before the Indus Water Treaty i.e. 1922-61, ten years after the treaty i.e. 1985-95 and recent year completed i.e. 2001-02 depicting drought conditions is as follows:

THE WULAR BARRAGE ISSUE

Despite the signing of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, another dispute emerged in 1985, when Pakistan learnt through a tender notice in the Indian press about the development of a barrage by the name of Tulbul Navigational Project. The barrage was to be constructed by India on the River Jhelum, below the Wular Lake near Sopore, 25 km north of Srinagar.

For Pakistan, the geo-strategic importance of the site lies in the fact that its possession and control provides India with the means to intimidate Pakistan. A dam on that site has the potential to ruin the entire system of the triple canal project within Pakistan namely, the upper Jhelum Canal, upper Chenab Canal and the lower Bari Doab Canal. Pakistan argues that India violated Article I (11), Article III (4) and sub-paragraph 8(h) of the Indus Waters Treaty.

Pakistan referred the Wular Barrage case to the Indus Waters Commission in 1986, which, in 1987, recorded its failure to resolve it. Once India suspended the construction work, Pakistan did not take the case to the International Arbitral Court. To date, eight rounds of talks have been held. The issue of Wular Barrage was one of the disputes on the agenda highlighted for the Indo-Pak talks, both at the Lahore meeting in February 1999, and at the Agra Summit of July 2001.

REFERENCES

1. Dr. Nazir Ahmad, "Water Resources of Pakistan", Miraj uddin Press, Lahore September 1993.
2. Dr. Bashir A Chandio and Ms Nuzhat Yasmin, "Proceedings of the National Workshop on Water Resources Achievements and Issues in 20th Century and Challenges for the Next Millennium", Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources, June 1999.
3. Centre of Excellence in Water Resources Engineering, Lahore, "Proceedings - Water for the 21st Century: Demand, Supply, Development and Socio- Environmental Issues", June 1997.
4. Ms. Farzana Noishab and Ms. Nadia Mushtaq, Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad http://issi.org.pk/SS_N.3/SS_Water_Disputes_in_South_Asia.htm.
5. http://www.himaanchal.com/hydel_projects.htm
6. Partial data acquired from Indus River System Authority for flows of rivers in Pakistan.