29 January 1999
Commission To Study Pakistan's Tarbela Dam
First Case Study Focuses On World's Largest Integrated Irrigation System

The World Commission on Dams is pleased to announce that the Government of Pakistan has agreed to support the WCD’s independent study of the country’s Tarbela Dam and the Indus River irrigation system, the world’s largest integrated irrigation scheme.

This is first of up to 10 such case studies of dams in major river basins to be undertaken by the Commission in preparation of its June 2000 final report on the global experience in large-scale dams.The other case studies will be announced shortly. These studies are a key element of the global, cross-sectoral research programme undertaken by the WCD as it charts the future course of water resource management in this new era of sustainable development. Each study will take six to eight months to complete and will be conducted by a multidisciplinary team supervised by the WCD.

"Given the time pressure we face in producing our report, we’d like to express our appreciation for the rapid response we received from the Government of Pakistan to our request for cooperation," said the WCD Chair, Prof. Kader Asmal, who is also South Africa's Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry. "Coming as it does so soon after our successful WCD consultation in Sri Lanka in December, I’m very encouraged by the positive South Asian response we’ve received thus far."

The Indus was an obvious choice as a case study. Covering an area of about one million square kilometers, the Indus’ regional importance is indisputable. More than 150 million people live in the basin defined by the 3,180-kilometer-long Indus and its five main tributaries, the Jehelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej. The system irrigates about 60 per cent of Pakistan’s 20 million hectares of cultivable land in an otherwise arid- to semi-arid region.

The Tarbela dam fits the bill as one of the world’s 45,000 ‘large-scale’ dams: it is 143 meters high, has a reservoir area of 243 square kilometers, storage capacity of 11.9 billion cubic meters of water and hydroelectric generating capacity of 3,478 megawatts. As with many dams, siltation is emerging as a major problem in the Tarbela reservoir. The dam was completed in 1976 and required the acquisition of 34,000 hectares of land and 20,000 houses. At least 80,000 people required resettlement as a result.

While governments and their agencies are among the key stakeholders to be consulted in the studies, "it must be reiterated that the Commission carries out its work independently," said Achim Steiner, WCD Secretary-General. The case studies will give ample attention, for example, to the views of non-governmental organizations involved in social and environmental aspects of river basin management; to small-scale as well as large-scale farmers; to hydrologists, engineers and utilities; and to people living both upstream and downstream of existing dams. To that end, interested parties involved in the Indus River basin are invited to contribute to this unique, consultative process.

"It must also be repeated that the Commission is advisory in nature," said Mr. Steiner. "Our mandate is to study and review specific river basins and operating dams, to collect lessons learned in order to chart the way forward. However, our mandate precludes us from adjudicating on current disputes, particularly those surrounding dams now in the planning or construction phases."

Background to the WCD process

Dams are a central, flashpoint issue in the sustainable management of our finite water resources. Those resources are subject to increasingly competitive demands as global population growth exacerbates tensions over the water needed to produce energy and to ensure food security. The potential for regional conflict over water resources is very real.

Dams can provide hydro-power, irrigation and flood control. These are developmental benefits, but there are also costs in human, environmental and economic terms. The public debate on large dams has been characterised by the increasingly adversarial tone adopted by dam advocates and opponents. The breakdown in constructive dialogue between interested parties in the dams debate has had ramifications in areas ranging from the achievement of civil society consensus on sustainable development, to the availability of financing for dams and their alternatives.

In April 1997, the IUCN-The World Conservation Union and the World Bank brokered an unusual summit of un-likeminded persons in Gland, Switzerland. Representatives of pro- and anti-dam interest groups, many of whom had never met before, surprised even themselves when they achieved rare consensus in their unanimous call for an independent World Commission on Dams.

After much follow-up negotiation between those stakeholders, 11 eminent persons with wide-ranging experience in dams-related issues  were chosen as Commissioners. The Chair is Prof. Kader Asmal, South Africa’s Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry. The Commission Secretariat was established in Cape Town, South Africa in June 1998 and consists of an international team of professionals expert in conflict resolution, the environment, sociology, anthropology, engineering, economics, and water and energy management.

The WCD’s motto is "Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future." Its two-year mandate calls for in-depth, independent analysis of the effectiveness of existing large-scale dams in meeting a broad range of development goals -- economic, social and environmental. Based on that analysis, the Commissioners will determine policy options to guide future decision-making over dams and their alternatives.

Along with the 8-10 in-depth case studies, the Secretariat will also undertake a more limited analysis of an additional 150 dams, primarily using existing data available from a wide variety of sources. Interested parties can contribute to the Commission’s deliberations by making submissions to the WCD and through the series of consultations the Commission will hold in the next several months.