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Abstract
This article questions whether the 1973 Helmand/Hirmand water treaty between Afghanistan and Iran is an appropriate institutional tool for sustainable water resources management in the context of transboundary water resources development. It shows that by failing to fulfil the most basic requisites for integrated water resources management and river basin management, the treaty does not ensure the integrity of the downstream agro-ecological system in the Sistan Delta. As a result, the 1973 treaty may not be the most relevant water regime for helping to balance legitimate development in upstream Afghanistan while also limiting harms to downstream Iran.
Notes
1. In Iran, the basin is called Hirmand. This is an ancient Persian adjective that literally means ‘the river of abundant water’. The term Helmand, used in Afghanistan, is a corruption of the actual name, introduced by British travellers and geographers in the nineteenth century (Mojtahed-Zadeh, 2004). For that reason, in the remainder of this article and for ease of reading we will use the term Hirmand instead of Hirmand/Helmand. Nevertheless, in some quotes and English references the term Helmand is used. For such cases, we will keep the term Helmand.
2. The task force contributing to this article included the Global Environment Facility, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and the Stockholm International Water Institute.
3.Hamun is an ancient Persian word meaning ‘lake’.
4. Calculation of water use in Afghanistan (versus in Iran) is somewhat difficult because of the complexity of the hydrological system (i.e. interconnected wetland and a border which cuts across different wetlands). Thus, it is rather arbitrary to estimate whether the flow entering wetlands such as Puzak and Saberi from the Afghan side is considered Afghan use, considering that part of this flow will be contributing – in good and wet years – to the supply of the other wetlands, including Hamoun-e-Helmand, which is located inside Iran's territory. In dry years, estimations may be easier as the actual perimeters of the wetlands would tend to fall within Iranian borders.
5. Other projects include raising the existing Dahla Dam by 8 m to restore storage lost to siltation. They also include the installation of a third turbine on the Kajaki for hydropower production. The transboundary impacts of those projects are, however, very limited.
6. This figure includes 5875 MCM of surface water as well as 60 MCM in the form of precipitation.
7. This would be a straight loss to Iran's water supply. The way the GIRoA is planning to deal with floods at the level of Kamal Khan has not been studied yet.
8. Note that the final exchange of documents, after ratification by the Iranian and Afghan parliaments, happened later, in Khordad 1356 (May-June 1977) (Fakhari, Citation1993, p. 60). The exchange of documents ratified by both Afghan and Iranian parliaments has been delayed in part due to the political turmoil related to changes in the Afghan regime in 1974.
9. A normal (or wet) year is defined according to a table of monthly minimum flow to be measured just upstream of the Kajaki Dam on the Helmand River.
10. Or 3,000,000 acre-feet as stated in the report.
11. We use here the 1970–71 dry year for illustrative purposes only, as in this year the treaty had not yet been signed.
12. Furthermore, this analysis does not include any water withdrawal through informal canals or pumping, an issue which the GIRoA has often underlined. Allegations of “illegal water withdrawal” had also been made by Afghan farmers nearby the border (Radio Free Europe, 2013). However, the extent to which this is happening and whether it is significant is unclear.