Part of: Prelims and GS – III – Methods of agriculture
In news Karez, being one of the types of water management and irrigation systems in Afghanistan, is under threat under the resurgent Taliban rule.
What is a Qanat / Karez?
This system of underground vertical shafts in a gently sloping tunnel is built from anupland aquifer to ground level.
They are energy efficient and green since they use the force of gravity rather than any machines running on fuel.
It has its origins in Persia and later spread to Arab and Turkic lands.
The entire system is a planning and execution of the forces of a watershed.
The wastewater is never mixed with drinking water.
Water in them does not evaporate and is also filtered till it comes to the surface.
There is no depletion of the aquifer since excessive use is impossible.
Its maintenance is also low-cost.
The first Karez system in India was built in the city of Bidar of Karnataka during the reign of Bahamani Sultan Ahmad Shah Wali (1422-1436), who shifted the capital from Gulbarga to Bidar.
Afghanistan, a semi-arid country, is losing its northern and central mountain glaciers due to climate change.
These glaciers provide meltwater to people, especially in rural areas through Surface water or canals, underground water or borewells and Qanat / Karez.
The Karez system has the potential to solve problems of water in Southern and southwestern regions of Afghanistan as there is no other water source.
Some 9,370 Karezes are operating in 19 Afghan provinces with the majority of them concentrated on the eastern, southern and western flanks of the Hindu Kush mountains.
These are part of the ‘Pashtun Crescent’, the heartland of the Pashtuns, the main ethnic group in the Taliban and the country’s largest ethnicity.
Several Karezes have been destroyed in the more than 40 years of war in Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion in December 1979.
