Streams, springs in mountainous region -

The News - PESHAWAR: A white car pulled up and two men disembarked and strode towards a spring to drink water. Being locals, they were stunned to see the once gushing spring dried up. They drank some water from the spout to quench their thirst but were deeply concerned at the depleting reservoir of water in the mountainous area — thanks to months of dry spell.

It was a scene at Khwagi Oba during a recent visit to Dir Upper district. Khwagi Oba — named after this spring — is an area eight kilometres south of Dir town, the district headquarters of Dir Upper. The roadside spring is decades old. Its water is called Khwagi Oba, Pashto for sweet water, because of its pleasant coldness in summer. Commuters stop here and drink water in the hot weather.

The place has become a spot for small-scale economic activities as vendors sell fruits and corncobs and people enjoy eating them under a shade tree. Water was so abundant in the Khwagi Oba spring that people not only used to drink from it and fetch for household use but also made ablution here. It was due to the plenty of water that locals built a small mosque at the spring.

But the situation is changing now — the water is depleting dangerously. “The situation will be alarming if it didn’t rain in few days to replenish all springs,” one of the two men, who introduced himself as Arshad Khan, voiced concern.

He said they would have no water storage in shape of glaciers for the summer. “The month of January is about to end and we didn’t have a drop of rain,” Arshad’s friend expressed surprise.

Dir Upper, a mountainous and forested district, has a rain-prone climate — both in winters and summers. Winter in Dir is very harsh as its northern part receives heavy snowfall and the mercury drops to minus seven to 10, in some areas even to minus 15 degree centigrade. The mountains wear a thick white blanket of snow and the earth absorbs water in winter.

In 2005, Dir received incessant but heavy snowfall for over three weeks, killing over 10 people. It had slid a mountain in Dir town and snowed in the people of dozens of villages, making it a disaster. But this winter the situation is so worrisome that Dir did not receive rains, let alone snowfall. Like other parts of the country, Dir Upper has been witnessing dry spell for months now.

At a stone’s throw from the spring flows River Dir, rising from Lowari, which receives several metres snowfall in the winter, blocking road to Chitral. But now the river has turned into a shallow stream, even children can wade through it.

The Met Office predicts the dry spell to continue till the next summer. “The El-Nino conditions, developed in June 2009 and suppressed Pakistan’s monsoon rainfall by about 30 per cent. This is likely to continue till next summer,” it said.

Negligent snowfall on the mountains means water level in rivers will not rise in summers, or will last for a short time. Several springs including Doganai Khwargai and two riverside springs near Degree College in Dir town have already dried up. Thana Cheena, a spring near the police station and several others are fast drying up. Farmers of the rain-fed fields are worried. “We

will be ruined if the dry spell continued,” a farmer Wazir Zada said.

“We will have a hotter summer and will face worst water shortage,” an elderly person Waliur Rahman feared in Dir. “Even snowfall will have no positive effect now, as snow melts immediately in current season.”

Director-General of Pakistan Meteorological Department Dr Qamaruz Zaman Chaudhry also shares Wali’s concern. “Yes, dry spell will decrease water table and affect water availability in springs in summer,” he told The News by phone.

Dr Qamar said that rain with snowfall on the mountains was expected on January 28 and 29 after four months of dry spell, which might improve situation. He said the rain and snowfall was, however, expected to remain 30 per cent below normal during the current winter.