Water Conservation in Barani Areas

Name of Project : Water Conservation in Barani Areas of KP
Location / Country : 35 Districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa / Pakistan
Client : Ministry of National Food Security & Research
Funded by : Govt. of Pakistan
Commencement : October 2020
Completion : October 2024

The common features of Barani and Arid lands are; low precipitation, high temperature, high evaporation, low humidity, poor rain water efficiency, water percolation and low productivity. Main objective of the GoP through development of the agriculture sector is to make the country self-sufficient in food grains and make raw material available for agro based industries.
WCBA project is in line with specific objectives of National Water Policy and Provincial Implementation Plan of the agriculture sector for enhancing water productivity, efficient and harvesting runoff water to ensure farm productivity, economic uplift of small farmers and improving economy of the country as a whole. The project is expected to encourage the farming community through financial assistance for water conservation for ensuring timely irrigation.

The project aims to achieve the following objectives:

To conserve land and water resources through various interventions for supplemental irrigation, livestock, farm forestry and fish farming.
To increase cropping intensity and water productivity.
To improve livelihood standards of poor farmers.
To improve socio-economic stability.

Quantifiable benefits of the project would be:

To induce aquifer/ground water recharge by pounding water in more than 300 water storage reservoirs.
To convert 15,032 acres of culturable wastelands into productive agriculture lands through development of 70 micro-watersheds.
To reduce soil erosion by containing flash floods through provision of soil & water conservation structures and check gulley erosion by plugging gullies through 3,000 check dams.
Minimize the adverse effects of drought by maximizing the irrigation water supplies through exploitation of sub-surface water from tube wells.
Conversion of around 43,225 acres of rain fed land into irrigated land through installation of 300 agricultural tube wells & solarization of 700 existing/new tube wells.
To enhance the capacity of the stakeholders in water harvesting and for sustainable use of land and soil resources for increased agriculture production.