26 March 2008 –The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has helped open a new hydrological station at a dam near the Afghan capital, Kabul, as part of its joint efforts with the country’s authorities to better manage water resources in Afghanistan.
The station, at Qargha Dam, is one of a network of 174 hydrological stations and 60 snow gauges and meteorological stations being erected around Afghanistan to measure water levels, precipitation, temperature and water quality.
The network of stations, a joint effort of FAO, the World Bank and the national Ministry of Energy and Water, is designed to assist in the planning of water supply, irrigation and hydropower projects, as well as in the mitigation of possible droughts and the operation of reservoirs.
FAO engineers attending yesterday’s formal opening stressed that Afghanistan – which is slowly trying to recover after decades of war and misrule – can have no food security without water security. A lack of reliable water supplies hampers Afghanistan’s rural economy and can lead to increased rural poverty.
FAO said that aside from the building of the new station, Qargha Dam itself went through partial reconstruction work. The dam serves as a popular recreation site for Kabul residents and also provides water for the western part of the city and for 2,000 hectares of land.
