FOREWORD
Mr Richard Trenchard, FAQ Representative in Afghanistan
Water is vital to sustainable social economic, and human development. The livelihoods of Afghan people are critically reliant upon their access to clean and reliable water resources. The scarcity of water is becoming more severe with the increasing impact of climate change in the context of Afghanistan. Therefore, there is aneed for careful and optimum use of water resources.
Hence, the development, and management of water resources in Afghanistan will adopt a river basin approach that follows the principles of integrated water resource management (IWRM). ltis in the same spirit that River-Basin Agencies (RBAs) and River Basin Councils (RBCs) were established in the five major river basins.
One of the key roles of the RBAs is to conduct water accounting to ensure the efficient use of scarce water resources. Doing so requires asound understanding of water availability and demand patterns at the basin scale. In Afghanistan, the highest irrigation demands are observed during the dry seasons when river flow is at its lowest, putting significant additional pressure on the river flow. This gives rise to the importance of large storage schemes and associated irrigation systems.
In this context, the high-quality design of large irrigation schemes is critical. Previous design manuals by the Afghan authorities, and/or by FAO cater only to small-scale schemes. This clearly indicates aneed for anew technical design manual to guide the design of large irrigation schemes.
In 2019, FAO was requested by the Ministry of Energy and Water (MEW) now National Water Affairs Regulation Authority (NWARA) to formulate a design manual for large-scale irrigation schemes (LSD. The request clearly stated that there is an urgent need for aparadigm shift in large irrigation diversion/intake schemes by the government and development partners. Thus, FAQ provided technical support in formulating this design manual.
This manual focuses on large-scale irrigation river diversion/intake, primary conveyance systems, cross drainage structures, distribution networks, and incorporates hydraulic and structural design concepts. The design standards and codes used in this manual are based on the outcomes of several working group meetings and where appropriate, they adopt established international standards applicable to Afghanistan. This design manual has been developed through a highlyconsultative, multi-stakeholder process, involving several regional and national workshops.
This comprehensive and dynamic manual will be updated as needed to incorporate new approaches and up-to-date knowledge. Iam confident that this manual will be useful in improving the way that large-scale irrigation schemes are designed in Afghanistan.
Iam grateful to NWARA for providing this opportunity to FAO to support the development of this manual. Iwould like to also thank the experts, officials from different Government ministries,
and development partners who have made valuable contributions to this manual throughout the process. Lastly, Iapplaud my colleagues at FAO Representation for their tireless efforts to finalize this critically important technical manual.
Sincerely
Richard Trenchard, FAO Representative inAfghanistan