Islamabad: Water and energy crises-hit Pakistan has only 18 dams to store water, which is insufficient to deal with the needs. A total of one million small and big dams exist in the world which can store 83000 cubic kilometer of water. Out of the one million dams, about 59.7 percent situated in Asia, 21.1 percent in North America, 12.6 percent in Europe, 3.3 percent in Africa, two percent in South Africa and 1.3 percent in Australia.
According to data available with The News Tribe, around 50,000 dams have over 200 feet height. China has more big dams than any other country in the world with a total of 19,000 water reservoirs, the US stands at second while neighbouring India is at third with 4,000 dams.
Pakistan has only 18 water reservoirs and seven barrages to cater the agricultural and hydel power needs of the country.
According to reports, today Pakistan has only the one-fifth of the water that was available in 1947, converting two crore acres of agricultural land into barren.
Due to lack of dams, annually 20 million acre feet of water go wasted in the country. The flow of river water is 145 million acre feet and only 13 percent of it is stored while the growing population is facing severe shortage of the natural resource.
On an average, 1040 cubic meter water is available for each Pakistani while the same was 5260 cubic meter in 1950 and according to reports it will reduce to 659 cubic meter by 2025 .
Pakistan built its first dam on River Kabul namely Warsak, and later Mangla and Tarbella were constructed following water dispute with India. Pakistan has 13 power stations which have a capacity to generate 6,444 megawatts.
Today India, which had 300 dams in 1947, has 4000 dams to produce 37,367 MW and irrigate over two million square kilometers of land.
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