Applied Water Science (2023) 13:41

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13201-022-01850-w

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Water resource management for improved crop cultivation

and productivity with hydraulic engineering solution in arid northern
Afghanistan
Wahidullah Hussainzada1 · Jonathan Salar Cabrera1,2 · Ahmad Tamim Samim1,4 · Han Soo Lee1,3 

Received: 6 October 2021 / Accepted: 29 November 2022 / Published online: 30 December 2022
© The Author(s) 2022

Abstract
This study is presenting a multidisciplinary approach for mitigations of water resources in the irrigation, water supply,
energy, and flood protection using hydrological model coupled with multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). The study area
is originated in the northern Afghanistan with serious water issues. Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was adopted
for the hydrological modelling. The model was calibrated and validated using monthly streamflow from 2010 to 2018. The
current irrigation state of the watershed was revised based on the crop water requirements and land area to address water
shortages. The investigations lead to an engineering-based solution (dam construction) to regulate and control the stream-
flow, especially during winter and flood season. Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) based on expert’s opinions were used to
determine suitable dam site locations. Then, the dam was added to the SWAT model for dam’s impact assessment. The dam
reservoir capacity (197,900,938 ­m3), dam storage area (748 ha), dam height (69 m), electricity generation (Ave = 25.4 MW, 
Min =16.23 MW, , Max = 66.5 MW), and flood protection ability were estimated. Finally, cost–benefit analysis (CBA) was
conducted to ensure the project feasibility. The CBA proves the feasibility and applicability of proposal. The surplus water
can address the water shortages with an extra capacity of irrigating 17,180.5 ha or provision of water supply for the Mazar-
i-Sharif city (the fourth biggest city in the Afghanistan). These findings can be used as guidance for the decision-makers in
the BRB for the future development of water resource management strategies.

Keywords  Irrigation scheme · Dam · SWAT​ · AHP · Groundwater · Balkhab River

Introduction

Water resources management has direct impact on the eco-

nomic development and human activity through history.
During the past century, the plant population grew rapidly
with increased human consumption of natural resources. In
* Han Soo Lee
this century, water consumption growth was two times larger
leehs@hiroshima-u.ac.jp
than population growth and caused every continent to expe-
1
Transdisciplinary Science and Engineering Program, rience water scarcity (United Nation 2020). Seckler et al.
Graduate School of Advanced Science and Engineering, (1999) approaches in 118 countries from 1990 to 2025 show
Hiroshima University, 1‑5‑1 Kagamiyama, that a quarter of the global population and a third of the pop-
Higashi‑Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739‑8529, Japan
2
ulation in developing countries will suffer from severe water
Institute of Computing and Engineering, Davao Oriental scarcity in the next century. In particular, arid and semi-
State University, 8200 Mati City, Davao Oriental, Philippines
3
arid regions with sparse precipitation are more vulnerable
Center for the Planetary Health and Innovation Science to water scarcity issues. Recent studies showed an increase
(PHIS), The IDEC Institute, Hiroshima University,
Hiroshima, Japan in drought severity in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Iran,
4 which are dominated by arid and semi-arid climates (Li et al.
Water and Environment Engineering Department, Mining
and Environment Engineering Faculty, Balkh University, 2017; Qutbudin et al. 2019; Ta et al. 2018; Zoljoodi and
Mazari Sharif 1701, Afghanistan Didevarasl 2013). Therefore, proper management practice

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Page 2 of 16 Applied Water Science (2023) 13:41

for the water resources is essential for those regions to water productivity (Faramarzi et al. 2010), assessing differ-
ensure the economic development and access to the safe, ent management practices, and finding the optimum solu-
healthy, and sustainable sources of water. tions (Huang and Li 2010; Panagopoulos et al. 2014). The
Afghanistan’s economy highly depends on agricultural literature proves SWAT is a reasonable tool for assessing
activity. This sector makes 18.6% of the gross domestic different irrigation water management policies and proposals
product (GDP) and directly or indirectly impacts 80% of before implementation and finding their impacts. The cur-
the total population’s livelihood in rural areas (Mahmoodi rent study aims to assess the optimal locations of hydraulic
2008; NSIA 2019). The surface water is the country’s most dams using multi-criteria decision analysis and to assess the
important source of irrigation and provide 86% of irrigation impact of proposed dam construction over the study region
water demand (Rout 2008). A traditional operation system on water resources management, especially for downstream
is used for irrigation water management in the country by agricultural water usage using SWAT.
the water users headed by mirabs (Viala 2003). Mirab, a The study adopts analytical hierarchy process (AHP)
combined Arabic and Persian word, means watermaster, under multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to decide
and this term is used widely in Iran and Central Asia. The the optimal dam site location. AHP is widely used to solve
traditional mirab system mainly manages the water alloca- a broad range of multi-criteria decision-making problems
tion in the main, secondary, and tertiary canals, and they do to calculate the weight of every criterion (Cabrera and Lee
not have the support of the higher institution at the village 2019; Tuy et al. 2022). AHP has been used in dam site suit-
or provincial level (Ward et al. 2013). The decision on the ability (Noori et al. 2019; Shao et al. 2020). Noori et al.
main canal’s water allocation was made by the River Basin (2019) used the dam site suitability analysis to find a suitable
Authority, managed by Ministry of Energy and Water. Sal- site for dam location in northern Iraq to reduce the impact of
man et al. (2017) highlighted the issue of uneven water allo- climate change and long-term drought caused water shortage
cation among water users where the upstream users receive and water issues in the study region. Another study used the
more water than the downstream in Afghanistan, especially dam suitability stream model (DSSM) coupled with AHP
during the low flow period. Despite less precipitation in to give weight to the input parameter in the northern Paki-
the country still, there is a huge capacity of unused water stan (Shao et al. 2020). Identifying the criteria and their
resources. Decades of war and conflict collapsed Afghani- importance for the dam site suitability varies from study
stan’s irrigation infrastructures. Country has 7.9 × 106 ha to study (Karakuş and Yıldız 2022; Noori et al. 2019; Raaj
of arable land, and in 1980, 3.3 × 106 ha of land was cul- et al. 2022; Shao et al. 2020).
tivated. During year 2008, just 1.8x106 ha of those arable The main aim of this study is to present a sustainable
land were cultivated (Mahmoodi 2008). The current irriga- engineering-based solution for the water resource manage-
tion challenges in Afghanistan can be categorized into two ment in in a less developed watershed using the hydrological
major issues: (1) lack of hydraulics structures and (2) water models coupled with MCDA. This study adapts a multidis-
resource management issue. To overcome the current prob- ciplinary approach for mitigating irrigation water resource
lems, Afghanistan needs put both into consideration. Hard management, overcoming water supply issues, flood risk
approaches include the rehabilitation of the existing infra- reduction, sustainable energy generation, and CBA for the
structure and the construction of new irrigation structures dam construction. The findings in this study could help the
with improved efficiency can address the first issue. On the decision-makers for further decisions on water resources in
other hand, soft approaches refer to policy development for the basin. This paper adopts the SWAT modelling of the
water resource management should be considered for water basin adopts from a previous study by Hussainzada and Lee
management and decision on infrastructure construction. (2021). Also, it contains the dam site suitability analysis
The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is a use- using AHP, and proposes an engineering-based solution
ful tool for performing irrigation and chemical yield assess- by adding a hydraulics structure and revising the irrigation
ments in watersheds. Scholars have used the SWAT model scheme adopted from the study of Hussainzada and Lee
to investigate different scenarios in irrigation water manage- (2022). Furthermore, this paper developed the CBA for the
ment and worldwide agricultural practice. Many scholars proposed scenario.
successfully used SWAT for runoff and sediment modelling
(Dhami et al. 2018; Himanshu et al. 2017), management of
the chemical yield and sediment (Himanshu et al. 2019), Materials
assessing the impact of alternative agriculture management
projects (Ullrich and Volk 2009), drought in catchment scale Study area
based on evapotranspiration (Dash et al. 2021), impact of
using technological upgrades and innovation to increase the The current study originated in northern Afghanistan in a
water productivity (Huang and Li 2010), estimation of crop semi-arid climate. Afghanistan is officially divided into five

13
Applied Water Science (2023) 13:41 Page 3 of 16  41

major basins: the Harirod Murghab, Kabul (Indus), Hel- Table 1  Irrigation land area and water rights for the 11 downstream
mand, Amu Darya, and Northern River basins (Fig. 1a). irrigation canals (NRBA 2019)
The study area is the Balkhab River basin (BRB) (Fig. 1b) No Canal name Irrigation land area Water
in the Northern River basin (NRB) of Afghanistan, with an (ha) allocation
elevation range from 202 to 4616 m. Five hydrometrologi- (%)
cal stations are installed in the entire basin and record dis- 1 Imam Sahib 7741.9 3.80
charge and other climatic parameters (Fig. 1c). The average 2 Nahar-i-Shahi 14,005.2 10.66
annual precipitation in this basin is 247 mm based on the 3 Sia Gird 7702.0 2.85
data provided by the Ministry of Energy and Water (MEW) 4 Balkh 8086.6 1.33
between 2010 and 2018. Most of the water resources in the 5 Moshtaq 9207.1 3.98
basin are consumed by the agriculture sector for irrigation 6 Chemtal 8003.4 3.12
of 296,744 ha of land. The irrigation water is distributed 7 Abdullah 22,866.3 13.32
through 101 irrigation canals and three regulator dams. 8 Dawlat Abad 38,728.2 14.27
Based on the investigations in the current research, 11 down- 9 Char Bolak 36,078.3 14.27
stream canals of BRB face severe water shortages for irriga- 10 Fayaz Abad 17,180.5 11.42
tion of farm products, especially during the low flow period. 11 Aqcha 88,706.0 20.94
Please refer to Table 1 for the details of 11 subbasin canals. Total 258,305.5 100*
Based on the recorded discharge in the most downstream
*
station, an annual average discharge of 1657 × 106 m3 passed   The water allocation percentage is based on the available stream
flow passing Rabat-i-Bala stations
this section of river from 2010 to 2018.

Datasets (DEM), land cover, soil type, and canal water allocation
were fed to the model. Finally, monthly average discharge
In this study, the SWAT model was used to model the hydro- was used for model validation purposes. Daily weather
logical regime for the study region. The inputs for modelling data for the maximum temperature, minimum tempera-
purposes are climatic data precipitation, relative humidity, tures, precipitation, relative humidity, and river discharge
maximum temperature, minimum temperature, solar radia- were collected from a hydrometrological station installed in
tion, and wind speed. Also, the digital elevation model the basin (Figure S1). The solar radiation and wind speed

Fig. 1  Map of the study area: a Afghanistan map showing the five major basins and elevation, b Balkhab River basin (BRB) with the Balkhab
River, five hydrometeorological stations, and eleven irrigation canal downstream

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Page 4 of 16 Applied Water Science (2023) 13:41

were retrieved from the NASA Prediction of World Energy lucerne, vegetables, melons, and opium poppy. In order to
Resources in the same coordinates of hydrometrological sta- synchronize between water delivery patterns and crop life
tions. Table 2 depicts the summary of the dataset used for cycle, a proper understanding of crop calendar information
the current research. is necessary (Murthy et al. 1998). Cropping calendar and
DEMs were obtained from the ALOS PALASAR Radio- crop water requirement can lead us to an accurate estima-
metric Terrain Correction (RT1) dataset provided by the tion of irrigation water demand in the basin on a monthly
Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Archive Data Center basis. Afghanistan’s irrigation data are scarce and limited
(ASF DAAC) with a spatial resolution of 12.5 m. The land- for scientific studies. The current study adopted crop water
cover map used for the current study is from the FAO Agri- requirements from a recent published study in Khost Prov-
cultural Market Information Services System in association ince, southern Afghanistan (Wali et al. 2019). Wali et al.
with the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock, (2019) used remote sensing techniques to estimate crop
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (FAO 2016). A proper soil water requirements for 2017. The weather conditions in
type map does not exist in many parts of the world, but the Khost Province with mean annual temperature 10.4 °C and
global soil type maps of Harmonized World Soil Database the mean annual precipitation 188 mm are similar to BRB
(HWSD_v121) and FAO/UNESCO soil map of the world climate conditions. The crop water requirements from
can be used as a substitute (Abbaspour et al. 2019). The Wali et al. (2019) in different months are summarized in
FAO/UNESCO soil map of the world with corresponding Table S1 in Supplementary material.
data was used as input for the SWAT model. This soil map
was developed from the World Inventory of Soil Emissions
(WISE) database by statistical analysis 4353 soil profiles Current irrigation status
in the inventory, which was developed at the International
Soil References and Information Centre (ISRIC) to provide The water allocation to the main canals is decided by the
geographical descriptions of soil factors that influence global local government and managed through irrigation canals
change (Batjes 1997). Doe (1962) provided further informa- by mirabs. The data for water allocation to the main canals
tion and a description of the world’s FAO/UNESCO soil are collected from the official NRB report (NRBA 2019).
map. Meanwhile, a huge portion of the streamflow in BRB is However, there is an exception for water allocation to
consumed by the agriculture sector. The water allocation to downstream canals due to water scarcity issues during the
the canals and geographical coordinates for the canal intake year. Water allocation amounts for the 11 downstream irri-
are included in the SWAT model from official reports by gation canals (Table 1) are based on the available water
NRB (NRBA 2019, pp. 24–26). in the main river. The water allocation of 11 downstream
canals (Table  1) were decided based on tax payments
Seasonal crop cultivation and the agricultural land area in each region (G. Sakhi,
personal communication, November 2, 2020). The water
Based on the Hussainzada and Lee (2022), the common rights for the 11 canals in the percentage of available water
crop types in northern Afghanistan are wheat, cotton, bar- in the main river based on the records in the Rabat-i-Bala
ley, rice, maize, pulses, vetches, potato, clover, oil seed, (Table 1).

Table 2  Summary of the datasets used in the SWAT modelling

Datasets Temporal resolution Spatial resolution Source

Precipitation, maximum and Daily – Ministry of Energy and Water (MEW), Islamic Republic of
minimum temperatures, relative Afghanistan (Feb-2019)
humidity
Solar radiation and wind speed Daily – NASA Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resources (https://​power.​
larc.​nasa.​gov/)
Monthly average discharge Monthly Ministry of Energy and Water (MEW), Islamic Republic of
Afghanistan
Irrigation canal discharge – – Northern River Basin authority (NRBA)
Digital elevation model – 12.5 m ALOS PLASAR (https://​search.​asf.​alaska.​edu/#/)
Soil type map – – FAO/UNESCO soil map of the world
Land-cover map – – Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Live stocks (MAIL),
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

13
Applied Water Science (2023) 13:41 Page 5 of 16  41

Methodology

December

111.2
111.2
Irrigation scenario

In this study, a detailed investigation of the current irriga-

November
tion scheme was conducted, and the irrigation water man-
agement was revised as a new irrigation scenario based

59
59
on land area, crop water requirement, and crop type. The
crop type was determined based on the national agriculture
profile from 2016 to 2018, and the agricultural land area

October
was consider based on NRB official reports. Per the NSIA

31.3
31.3
(2019), the main cultivated different crops (and associated

Table 3  Estimation of monthly irrigation water consumption for 1 ha of agricultural land in BRB downstream adopted from (Hussainzada and Lee 2022)
cultivation areas) are wheat (60.0%), rice (3.3%), barley

September
(3.3%), maize (3.6%), pulses (2.3%), vegetable (4.3%),
potato (1%), onion (0.3%), fruits (9.3%), almond (0.6%),

2.32

57.5
61.9
18.8

140
oil seed (2.6%), and others (9.4%). The new irrigation

0
scenario proposed by the current study is wheat (65%),
rice (5%), maize (5%), pluses (4%), spring vegetables

August

60.15
26.72
42.04

147.1
353.4
77.4
(5%), summer vegetables (4%), and orchards (12%) for
entire BRB downstream. In addition, based on the crop
water requirements for different crop types (Table S1) and

74.95
59.28
53.8

167.3
440.8
85.5
July
the specified irrigation area for each crop (Table 3), the
monthly water requirement for 1 ha of agricultural land is
estimated as shown in Table 3.

39.52

373.8
76.95
June

42.4

166
Table 3 summarizes the water consumption of a sin-

49
gle hectare of agricultural land if it is cultivated as the
proposed crop type percentage scenario. Estimations

35.08

163.6
901.1
610.4
27.85
May

46.8
6.44
show that for irrigation of unit area of land in BRB

11
4559.5 m3 ∕ha∕year of water is required. Table 4 shows the
current irrigation water allocation and proposed scenario
828.75

58.2
130.8
1017.8
Monthly crop water requirement ­(m3/ha/mon)
April

water allocation for 11 downstream canals. The cell with

the white background is the water allocation to each canal
based on the newly proposed scenario, while the cell with
March

the grey background in Table 4 shows the current water

25.05

569.2
514.2

57
allocation to the canals by NRB. The proposed irrigation
scenario is based on the storing water during the winter
and high flow behind the storage dam and use it during
February

low flow period with high irrigation water consumption.

348
339

8.4
January

SWAT model set‑up with a proposed dam

213.9
213.9

The SWAT is a semi-distributed physical model capable

of predicting the impact of water management, agricul-
Area (%)

ture chemical yield, and sediment in the large watershed

100

on different timescales (Arnold et al. 1998; Duan et al.

12
65

5
4
4
5
5

2018; Grusson et al. 2015). The model inputs are pre-

cipitation, relative humidity, temperature, wind speed, and
Summer vegetables
Spring vegetables

solar radiation, on a daily basis. The model is capable of

computing the output on the temporal resolution of the
daily, monthly, or annual timescale. SWAT is widely used
Crop type

Orchards

for water resource assessment (Guiamel and Lee 2020),

Wheat

Pulses
Maize

Total
Rice

13

41 

13
Page 6 of 16

Table 4  Monthly required water allocations for the 11 downstream irrigation canals and required water allocation based on the purposed irrigation scheme scenario
No Canal name Irrigation land (ha) Required canal water allocation (­ m3/s)
January February March April May June July August September October November December

1 Imam Sahib 7741.9 0.74 1.34 1.97 3.65 3.13 1.34 1.53 1.23 0.50 0.11 0.21 0.39
1.37 1.47 1.92 3.51 4.30 2.46 1.64 1.24 1.22 1.28 1.39 1.37
2 Nahar-i-Shahi 14,005.2 1.34 2.42 3.57 6.60 5.65 2.42 2.77 2.22 0.91 0.20 0.38 0.70
3.84 4.12 5.39 9.84 12.05 6.91 4.59 3.47 3.41 3.60 3.91 3.85
3 Sia Gird 7702.0 0.74 1.33 1.96 3.63 3.11 1.33 1.52 1.22 0.50 0.11 0.21 0.38
1.03 1.10 1.44 2.63 3.22 1.85 1.23 0.93 0.91 0.96 1.05 1.03
4 Balkh 8086.6 0.77 1.40 2.06 3.81 3.26 1.40 1.60 1.28 0.52 0.11 0.22 0.40
0.48 0.51 0.67 1.23 1.50 0.86 0.57 0.43 0.43 0.45 0.49 0.48
5 Moshtaq 9207.1 0.88 1.59 2.35 4.34 3.72 1.59 1.82 1.46 0.60 0.13 0.25 0.46
1.43 1.54 2.01 3.67 4.50 2.58 1.71 1.29 1.27 1.35 1.46 1.44
6 Chemtal 8003.4 0.77 1.38 2.04 3.77 3.23 1.39 1.58 1.27 0.52 0.11 0.22 0.40
1.12 1.21 1.58 2.88 3.53 2.02 1.34 1.01 1.00 1.05 1.14 1.13
7 Abdullah 22,866.3 2.19 3.95 5.83 10.77 9.23 3.96 4.52 3.62 1.48 0.32 0.62 1.14
4.80 5.15 6.73 12.29 15.06 8.63 5.74 4.33 4.26 4.50 4.88 4.82
8 Dawlat Abad 38,728.2 3.71 6.69 9.88 18.25 15.64 6.70 7.65 6.13 2.51 0.54 1.06 1.93
5.14 5.52 7.21 13.17 16.13 9.25 6.15 4.64 4.56 4.82 5.23 5.16
9 Char Bolak 36,078.3 3.46 6.23 9.20 17.00 14.57 6.24 7.13 5.71 2.34 0.51 0.99 1.80
5.14 5.52 7.21 13.17 16.13 9.25 6.15 4.64 4.56 4.82 5.23 5.16
10 Fayaz Abad 17,180.5 1.65 2.97 4.38 8.10 6.94 2.97 3.39 2.72 1.11 0.24 0.47 0.86
4.11 4.42 5.77 10.54 12.91 7.40 4.92 3.71 3.65 3.86 4.19 4.13
11 Aqcha 88,706.0 8.50 15.31 22.62 41.80 35.81 15.35 17.52 14.05 5.75 1.24 2.42 4.42
7.54 8.10 10.58 19.33 23.67 13.57 9.02 6.81 6.70 7.08 7.68 7.57
Total 258,305.5 24.75 44.59 65.87 121.71 104.28 44.70 51.01 40.90 16.74 3.62 7.06 12.87
36.00 38.66 50.51 92.26 113.00 64.78 43.06 32.50 31.97 33.77 36.65 36.14

The cell with white background shows the water requirement for new irrigation scheme included 20% loss of water in the irrigation system while the cell with bold values shows the current
water allocation by BRB
Applied Water Science (2023) 13:41
Applied Water Science (2023) 13:41 Page 7 of 16  41

evaluations of non-point source pollution, and climate step, the 31 subbasins were divided into 1,532
change in relation to water supplies and watersheds (Adu HRUs.
and Kumarasamy 2018; Reddy 2019). The model predicts
surface runoff based on a water balance equation (Eq. 1). Step 3. Creating input tables: The weather data were
t
entered as the input data for the streamflow simu-
lation into model database from 2010 to 2018 with
∑
SW t = SW + (Ri − Qi − ET i − Pi − QRi ) (1)
t=1 daily resolutions.

where SW t and SW are the respective final and initial soil Step 4. Calibration and validation: Parameter optimiza-
water contents at time t  , respectively; R , Q , ET  , P , and QR tion was performed for the SWAT model using
are daily precipitation, runoff, evapotranspiration, percola- the SWAT Calibration and Uncertainty Procedure
tion, and the return flow, respectively; and all units are mm (SWAT-CUP) v5.2.1 (Abbaspour 2007) and the
of ­H2O. Sequential Uncertainty Fitting Algorithm (SUFI2)
The major procedure for the SWAT hydrological model for model calibration and uncertainty analysis.
set-up and sustainable water resource management using The SUFI2 details were presented by Homan
AHP for decision-making over BRB watershed is shown in et al. (2011) and Abbaspour (2007). The model
Fig. 2. was run for the entire BRB within three-time
periods; three years warmup period (2010–2012),
Step 1. Watershed delineation: The SWAT in ArcGIS three-year calibration period (2013–2015), and
Desktop interface was used for stream flow simu- two-year and nine-month validation period from
lation. In this step, the watershed was divided into January 2016 to September 2018. The model cali-
smaller 31 subbasins with DEM as a input to the bration and validation were based on the monthly
model. average streamflow observations recorded on the
subbasins 7, 10, 28, and 30 on the Rabat-i-Bala,
Pul-i-Baraq, Doshqadam, and Nazdik-i-Nayak sta-
Step 2. Hydrological response units (HRUs) definition: tions respectively. The SWAT hydrological model
Land use–land cover, soil type, and slope maps of BRB used for testing the improved irrigation
were used to divide the 31 subbasins to smaller scenario purposed in the current study. The SWAT
units with homogeneous characteristics. In this hydrological model of BRB is adopted from a

Fig. 2  Methodological flow chart for hydrological modelling with SWAT and sustainable water resource management and dam site suitability
analysis using AHP

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41 
Page 8 of 16 Applied Water Science (2023) 13:41

previous study over BRB from Hussainzada and • Land Use and Land Cover: The built-up area and agricul-
Lee (2021). tural lands are less desirable for the dam construction while
the barren land has higher desirability because of the land
Dam suitability assessment using analytical price.
hierarchy process (AHP)

Dam suitable sites is the primary water resource manage- The pairwise comparison matrix is the first step in the AHP
ment strategy (Karakuş and Yıldız 2022). A quantitative method. Each criterion was compared to another criterion from
assessment for Dam site selection depends on multiple cri- the 1–9 scale from Saaty (1980). In this paper, we adjusted the
teria, such as soil type (S), drainage (D), slope (Sl), eleva- scale from one to five based on the number of criteria of the
tion (E), and land use–land cover (LULC). Furthermore, in study. The second step is the normalization, where each value
this study, appropriate areas of the dam site were identi- in the comparison matrix ( Cij ) is divided by the sum of column
fied using GIS and AHP under the multi-criteria decision in the pairwise comparison matrix to get the normalized value
analysis (MCDA). The list of criteria was preselected by ( Xij ) (Eq. 2).
the author’s decision. The level of importance of each crite- ∑n
rion was identified using expert opinions. The questionnaire Xij = Cij ∕ C
i=1 ij
(2)
was sent to 13 experts in the field via email and 10 of them
were used as the source for ranking the criteria and three of The next step is to generate the weight of each criterion
them were inconsistent. Below is the list of criteria and its ( Wij ) by dividing the normalized value ( Xij ) by the number of
description. Natural break method was adopted for the clas- criterion ( n ) (Eq. 3).
sification of the criterion to very low, low, medium, high, ∑n
and very high suitable for dam construction, and the result
Wij = X ∕n
i=1 ij
(3)
is given in Table 5.
The consistency ratio is the last part in the AHP proce-
dure with three subcomponents. The first subcomponent is to
• Soil: Soil type and hydrological soil classification are
determine the consistency measure (CM). CM can be derived
significant factors in determining an area's water holding
by multiplying the pairwise matrix with the weight ( Wij ), and
and infiltration characteristics (Cabrera and Lee 2018).
the result is divided by the weighted sum vector with the cri-
The harmonized world soil database was used for this
terion weight. Next, the consistency index ( CI  ) is calculated
purpose.
using Eq. 4, where the 𝜆max is the average of the CM and n is
• Discharge: The amount of water flow in the river ­(m3/s).
the number of criteria. Finally, the consistency ratio ( CR ) is
The river discharge comes from the precipitation, snow-
derived using Eq. 5, where the value of the relative index ( RI  )
melt, and groundwater flow in the Basin (Hussainzada
is defined in the relative index table of Prof. Saaty (1980).
and Lee 2021).
• Slope: When the slope increases, the flow velocity will CI = (𝜆 max −n)∕(n − 1) (4)
also increase. A rise in the gradient lowers infiltration but
increases surface runoff; as a result, in areas with a lower CR = CI∕RI (5)
gradient, a large volume of water gets stagnant, resulting
in flooding (Lei et al. 2020).
• Elevation: The movement of the overflow direction and
the depth of the water level are controlled by the eleva-
tion (Al-Ruzouq et al. 2019).

Table 5  Summary of the criteria classification used for the AHP

Criteria Classification [suitability level]
Very low [1] Low [2] Moderate [3] High [4] Very high [5]

Elevation (m) 3054–4621 2255–3054 1439–2255 706–1439 241–706

Discharge ­(m3/s) 0.03–0.61 0.62–2.59 2.60–5.11 5.12–19.89 19.90–50.18
Slope (deg) 39.30- 83 26.64–39.30 16.24–26.63 7.4–16.24 0.1–7.5
LULC Built-up Agriculture Forest Water Bodies Barren Land
Soil - Rock outcrops (RK) Coarse and rocky Sandy clay loam (AR) Silt loam (CL)
soil (LP)

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Applied Water Science (2023) 13:41 Page 9 of 16  41

Results curve number (CN2), soil evaporation compensation factor

(ESCO), and saturated hydraulics conductivity (SOL_K).
SWAT model calibration and validation The river discharge baseflow is affected by seepage and
spring water discharge, especially during the dry season
The SWAT model was set up using ArcGIS Desktop as between July to September. Since there was no record of
the platform with three years of warmup period, three the river discharge, the point-source station discharge
years for calibration, and two years and nine months for records were used to estimate the contribution of ground-
the validation from January 2010 to September 2018 using water and spring to the flow. The hydrograph in Fig. 3
SWAT-CUP. Firstly, the model was calibrated using an shows the comparison between model output and monthly
elevation band; secondly, the snow parameters were cali- observations for river discharge in the four stations in sub-
brated; then, the most sensitive parameters were selected basins 7, 10, 28, and 30 (Fig. 1c). The model performance
for the calibration. Seven parameters were found to be was assessed using the coefficient of determination ­(R2),
the most sensitive parameters, namely threshold depth of Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) (Nash and Sutcliffe 1970),
water in the shallow aquifer required for return flow to and per cent BIAS (PBAIS) (Gupta et al. 1999) in the
occur (GWQMN), groundwater “revap” coefficient (GW_ four stations from upstream to downstream in the BRB.
REVAP), groundwater delay (GW_DELAY), available The SWAT modelling results exhibit a good agreement
water capacity for the soil layer (SOL_AWC), SCS runoff with the station’s monthly discharges. Statistics for model
performance are summarized in Table  6. The model is

Fig. 3  Comparisons between
the observed and simulated
monthly discharge in a subbasin
7 [Rabat-i-Bala], b subbasin
10 [Pul-i-Baraq], c subbasin 28
[Doshqadam], and d subbasin
30 [Nazdik-i-Nayak] for calibra-
tion and validation period

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Page 10 of 16 Applied Water Science (2023) 13:41

Table 6  Summary of Subbasin Calibration Validation

statistical indicators for model
2
performance R NSE PBIAS R2 NSE PBIAS

7 0.70 0.52 23.4 0.63 0.58 10.7

10 0.86 0.83  − 8.5 0.66 0.61 -4.6
28 0.67 0.40 23.4 0.58 0.47 20.2
30 0.80 0.57 17.5 0.76 0.43 20.2

Table 7  Pairwise comparison matrix for dam suitable assessment The output of the AHP process for the dam site suitability
based on the expert’s opinion analysis is shown in Fig. 4. In Fig. 4a, based on the speci-
CRITERIA D S SL E LULC fied criteria and its importance, the suitable area for dam
construction is dedicated by red colour. The subbasins 10, 9,
Discharge (D) 1.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 7, and 1 are found to be most suitable for dam construction.
Soil (S) 0.49 1.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 The authors tentatively select subbasin 10 as the best loca-
Slope (SL) 0.53 0.64 1.00 2.00 2.00
tion for dam construction. The reason behind this selection
Elevation(E) 0.40 0.55 0.50 1.00 2.00
is that BRB is mountainous in the southern part, and most
LULC 0.48 0.45 0.44 0.47 1.00
of its flat area is in the northern part of BRB, where suitable
Sum 2.90 4.69 5.40 7.78 9.72
lands for the agriculture exist. Selection of dam in the most
upstream gives more chance for land development in the
dam downstream. Figure 4b is LULC prepared using the
adopted from Hussainzada and Lee (2021). Please refer Landsat 8 level 1 imagery for more detail of the area and
to Hussainzada and Lee (2021) for more details on the location of the dam. The author decides to locate dam in the
process and result for calibration and validation. southern part where the agricultural land and built-up are in
minimum and most of the surface coverage is barren land
Site identification using AHP to reduce the land cost for the dam construction project. As
shown in Fig. 4c, the dam located in subbasin 10 with an
This section presents the result of the AHP expert opinion estimated height of 69 m of water can store 197,900,938
in determining the suitable dam site location. Moreover, ­m3 of water and will submerge an area of approximately
Table 7 shows the pairwise comparison matrix for the aggre- 748 ha and a length of 1600 m. The mentioned capacity is
gate results from the consistent responses. Table 8 shows the chosen because the water shortage for irrigation water sup-
normalized information with the column (Weight) contain- ply happens in three consecutive months February, March,
ing the relative importance weights of every criterion. This and April. The total difference between supply and required
study's RI and 𝜆max values are 1.12 and 5.15, respectively. water for the current conditions estimated to be 131,820,480
Moreover, the CR value is 0.033, indicating a level of coher- ­m3. The extra storage is considered to be used for flood con-
ence in comparing each criterion. Finally, the suitability trol and storage of surplus water.
index ( SI  ) using GIS and remote sensing technology was
calculated on Eq. 6. This equation is derived from the AHP Water resource management
weights, as shown in Table 8.
Irrigation water management
SI = D × 0.33 + S × 0.23 + SL × 0.20 + E × 0.14 + LULC × 0.10
(6)
As per Hussainzada and Lee (2022), the irrigation water
allocation in the BRB is determined based on the tax and

Table 8  Matrix normalization CRITERIA D S SL E LULC CM Weight

with the weights and
consistency measure (CM) Discharge (D) 0.35 0.44 0.35 0.32 0.22 5.20 0.33
Soil (S) 0.17 0.21 0.29 0.24 0.23 5.20 0.23
Slope (SL) 0.18 0.14 0.19 0.25 0.23 5.17 0.20
Elevation(E) 0.14 0.12 0.09 0.13 0.22 5.12 0.14
LULC 0.16 0.10 0.08 0.06 0.10 5.10 0.10
Sum 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 - 1.00

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Applied Water Science (2023) 13:41 Page 11 of 16  41

Fig. 4  Dam site suitability map using AHP: a dam site suitability level map on the subbasins level, b land-use–land-cover map created using
Landsat 8 satellite images using support vector machine, c spatial extension of water in case of dam construction in subbasin 10

agricultural land and available water in the river for each loss in the irrigation canals and releasing of a minimum 20
month. (Refer to Table 1 for the percentage of water alloca- ­m3/s during non-irrigation months to maintain the down-
tion to each canal in the BRB downstream.) The compari- stream ecosystems, and (3) grey line represent the ideal case
son between the current and proposed irrigation scenarios of no water loss in the irrigation canals. The calculation
in Hussainzada and Lee (2022) shows that the BRB down- based on Table 4 and considering the scenario of releasing at
stream farmers face water shortages during February, March, least 20 ­m3/s of water during the non-irrigation period shows
April, July, and August and extra water in other months than that the Balkhab River owns a surplus water of approxi-
the irrigation consumption. The most significant water short- mately84 × 106 m3 . As a possible scenario, the surplus water
age happens during the three consecutive months in Feb- can be used for the irrigation of 17,180.5 ha of new arable
ruary, March, and April with shortage of 138, 820, 480 m3 land in the BRB (Hussainzada and Lee 2022).
for irrigation. The annual average flow in subbasin 10 was
estimated as 1.578 × 109 m3 by the SWAT model from 2013 Hydroelectricity generation
to 2018. Additionally, the irrigation water requirement in
the BRB was estimated to be 1.395 × 109 m3 including 20% The dam can be used for multiple purposes. Energy gen-
loss in the irrigation channels (Hussainzada and Lee 2022). eration is one of the possible surplus uses of the dam. A
The dam can regulate the water flow for entire year to fill the Dam with 69 m head and annual flow of 1.578 × 109 m3 has a
gap between the consumption and natural flow in the river. theoretical capacity of generating 25.4 MW or 87, 840 MWh
Figure  5 illustrates the hydrograph in the subbasin 7 of energy based on Eq. 7 if we consider the annual average
under three different conditions: (1) the blue line represent flow from the dam. Considering the dam outflow sched-
the river flow in the subbasin 7 in the current condition, (2) ule in Table 4, the minimum and maximum discharge are
the red line shows the controlled river flow by dam con- 131 m3 ∕s and 31.97 m3 ∕s which can generate 66.5 MW and
structed in the subbasin 10 and release water based on the 16.23 MW respectively. As per Ahady et al. (2022), the resi-
existing crop water requirements plus 20% possible water dential energy consumption in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan

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Page 12 of 16 Applied Water Science (2023) 13:41

Fig. 5  Resulting hydrographs
from subbasin 7 with (red) and
without (blue) dam inclusion in
subbasin 10

is 236, 526.3 kWh for cooling, heating, lightening, and Pt = P0 (1 + r)n (8)
domestic hot water usage. The population of Mazar-i-Sharif
is 584,886 (NISA, 2020). The generation from the dam is 37 where Pt is the projected population at time t  , P0 is the ini-
times bigger than the demand for the Mazar-i-Sharif which tial population, r is the population growth rate, and n is the
is one of five big cities in Afghanistan. number of years for the future projection.
P = g × H × Q × Ef f iciency (7) Flood control
where the P is power generated in KW  , g is the gravitational
acceleration ( 9.81 m∕s2 ), H is effective head (m), Q is the The Balkhab River experiences the highest flow in May
amount of water flow ( m3 ∕s ), and efficiency is how well the ( 113 m3 ∕s ) due to rapid snowmelt and rainfall (Hussainzada
turbine and generator convert the power of falling water into and Lee 2022). The driest month in the basin is Septem-
electric power. The average flow from dam is 50.04 m3 ∕s , ber, with an average total monthly flow of 31.97 m ­ 3/s. The
and the efficiency of the turbine and generator are between most extreme flood events were recorded ( 1190 m3 ∕s ) in the
95 and 75% where to be in safe side the lower range were Rabat-i-Bala station during May 2014 (Figure S1), and the
included in the estimation. accumulated volume of water within a day was 102 million
­m3. The capacity of the dam is approximately 192 millionm3 .
Therefore, the volume of water in the extreme event is only
Water supply 53% of the dam’s capacity. Then, add the 84 million ­m3 as
surplus water based on the result in Sect. 4.3.1. The total
The river has a surplus flow of 84 × 106 m3 flow after irriga- volume of water is196millionm3 . Thus, the overflow is only
tion of the existing lands. In this study, the urban population 4 millionm3 which the dam outflow rate can handle. The
living in BRB are targeted as the consumer of the water sup- dam can control the water flow during extreme scenarios
ply system. The urban population in the BRB was reported and reduce the damage downstream.
at 584,886, and the population growth rate was reported at
2.14% (NISA 2020). If we consider the geometric popula- Cost–benefit analysis (CBA)
tion growth in Eq. 8, the projected population of BRB in
50 years will be 1,686,024. Afghanistan Ministry of Urban An estimation of the costs and benefits of the dam is pre-
Development and Land determined the per capita demand sented in Table  9. The construction cost was estimated
for water supply as 140 l∕day∕person . The estimation shows based on similar dams constructed in Afghanistan. In west-
that 86, 155, 856 m3 is sufficient for the water consumption of ern Afghanistan, the Salma dam construction was finished
the urban population in 2070. The surplus water in the BRB ­ 3, and electricity
in 2016 with a capacity of 640 million m
is almost sufficient for a water supply project with 50-year generation of 42 MW costs 290 million USD (BBC 2016).
life span. Comparing the Salma dam reservoir capacity and electric-
ity generation capacity BRB dam is almost one-third in size

13
Applied Water Science (2023) 13:41 Page 13 of 16  41

Table 9  CBA results for the Cost

dam construction with an
effective life span of 50 years No Description Amount (USD)

1 Construction 89,600,000
2 Operation and Maintenance (2.5% of construction costs) 2,241,846
3 Land Acquisition 3,550,889
Total 95,392,735
Benefit
6 Hydroelectric Energy 623,011,200
7 Irrigation Water 226,826,994
8 Municipal and Industrial Water Supply 11,165,798
9 Reduction of Flood Losses 79,411,764
10 Fishery and Recreational Benefits from Reservoirs 7,570,500
Total1 721,159,262
Total2 936,820,458

The decision-makers should consider using surplus water for the irrigation or water supply. ­Total1 is the
benefits for the developing water supply system case and ­total2 is the benefit in case of agricultural land
development

and will roughly cost 89.6 million USD. The operation and from the beginning. The severe water shortages made the
maintenance of the dam will cost 1.5–2.5% construction cost farmers move to the big city and engaged labour work for
(Paul Lako, Giorgio Simbolotti, 2010). The price for a single their livelihood. The construction of the BRB dam can
hectare of land was determined based on the interview with improve the farmers' economic condition. The adequacy of
local people to be 10,130 USD/ha in subbasin 10. water can let the farmers shift to more profitable products
On the other hand, the electricity price is 0.056 USD/ and use the full capacity of their land. Regulation of the
kWh. The price for the agricultural products were estimated water under a controlled hydraulics structure can encour-
based on the market price in Afghanistan, and the agriculture age the farmers and investors to invest more in the agricul-
products were estimated based on the yield of agriculture ture sector. Currently, farmers use traditional agricultural
products per hectare of land. The average revenue of 20% techniques for farming and irrigation. Cheap manpower is
was consider as farmer profits. The municipal and industrial being used instead of agricultural machinery, and the most
water supply price is currently 0.36 USD/m3. There is no used irrigation system are earth open channels and surface
record for the flood damage in region scales. However, the irrigation. A more stable water source can change the agri-
annual flood damage in Afghanistan estimates at 54 mil- culture sector to more mechanized modern techniques and
lion USD, and we consider the flood damage as total dam- increase product yields.
age divided by the number of provinces times 50 years. The The cost and benefit analysis shows that the dam con-
revenue for the fishery was compared with the Darunta dam struction is economically feasible. The dam's construction
located in eastern Afghanistan. can affect the resident's daily life by providing sustain-
able irrigation and water supply. A sustainable source of
irrigation can improve the farmers' economic status and
Discussion prevent them from migrating to the urban area by increas-
ing the incomes from the agriculture sector. The power
Economical impact of dam reservoir generation from the dam can provide the energy source to
the resident and in case of connection to the power grid
Most BRB residents rely on the agriculture sector and for the neighbouring provinces. Energy generation alone
agriculture activities. Farming is one of the low-income can provide enough revenue to cover the costs of the dam.
activities in the country. The agriculture sector makes up Besides, dam construction can substantially reduce the
18.6% of the country's GDP, while 80% of the population flood risk downstream, causing the fatality and loss of
is directly or indirectly engaged in agricultural activities agricultural products, livestock, and residents' shelter. In
(Hussainzada and Lee 2021). Farmers lose their agricul- addition, the resident can benefit from the improvement in
tural products near harvesting time due to lack of water, the fishery and recreational activities in the dam site and
or they do not cultivate the total capacity of their land neighbourhood.

13
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Page 14 of 16 Applied Water Science (2023) 13:41

Downstream water resource development a consequence of other studies for sustainable water
resources management in the basin with low precipita-
Proper water resource management in the basin with limited tion and limited water resources. The basin's hydrological
amounts of water is essential for the sustainable development model is used to determine the basin's hydrologic regime
and improvement of the residents' livelihoods. The schol- and find the strong and weak points of the stream flow.
ars used a similar approach for water resource management Consequently, current water management practices in
also. For example, Talebi et al. (2019) used the SWAT model the basin were analysed to find the gaps in the manage-
analytical network process (ANP) to determine the suitable ment. After identifying the problems and evaluating the
location of underground dams for subsurface flow in Iran. resources, engineering-based solutions were proposed and
Another study evaluates the rainwater harvesting system using tested in the basin using the hydrological models already
the SWAT model and MCDA in Iran (Doulabian et al. 2021). prepared. After testing the proposed mitigation, further
In this study, the SWAT was used as a tool to simulate the detailed studies were conducted to develop the possible
streamflow and test the proposed solution. In the current study, management practices for the existing resources.
SWAT modelling was coupled with MCDA to solve the irriga- AHP was used to determine the suitable site for
tion water management issues at the basin level. dam construction. Then, the dam reservoir capacity
On the other hand, the dam can be used for power gen- ( 192 millionm3 ) and height ( 69 m ) were measured using
eration. Afghanistan installed capacity during 2020 was remote sensing techniques. The mitigation scenarios to
1030.87 GWh , while the country imports from neighbouring overcome water shortages were estimated, and possible
countries was 5151.87 GWh . The construction of the multi- usage for the surplus water ( 84 millionm3 ) was proposed
purpose dam can fulfil the country's energy requirements in the current study. The surplus water can be used for
and improve the country's economy through job creation and electricity generation, domestic water supply, and agri-
power independence. As it is already discussed in Sect. 4.3.2, culture land development. Finally, a CBA was included
the capacity of power generation from the dam is 37 times in determining the feasibility of implementation for the
bigger than the demand in the urban area located in the BRB. proposed solutions.
The BRB residents rely on groundwater for their water The outcomes of the current study could be used for
supply. They use shallow to deep wells to extract the water the primary investigations in the basins with limited water
for domestic usage. The high demands in recent decades resources which faced the water shortage for irrigation
caused groundwater degradation and groundwater table activities. Specifically, the content of the current study
reduction, especially in the populated urban area. It is pos- could be used as the starting point for the decision-makers
sible for the local government to use the irrigation surplus in developing the BRB. The outcomes show that not only
water for the water supply consumption of the urban area. the BRB owns a sufficient amount of water resources for
The estimation in Sect. 4.3.3 shows that the Balkhab River current activities but also there is a potential of further
can provide the domestic water demand for population until development in case of proper management of existing
2070. However, more detailed studies are required for the resources.
water quality and project feasibility.
Supplementary Information  The online version contains supplemen-
The construction of the dam will reduce the risk of flood- tary material available at https://d​ oi.o​ rg/1​ 0.1​ 007/s​ 13201-0​ 22-0​ 1850-w.
ing in the downstream and lessen the lost in the agriculture
products, livestock, and reduce casualties. BBR will directly Acknowledgements  The first author is supported by the Project for
benefit from the dam by increasing agricultural products, the Promotion and Enhancement of the Afghan Capacity for Effective
Development (PEACE), JICA, Japan. The authors would like to thanks
stable water supply sources, renewable energy production, the members of Costal Hazard and Energy System Science (CHESS
and downstream flood control. Indirectly, the construction of Lab), Hiroshima University for their kinds support and feedbacks for
dams will create lots of jobs in construction, operation, and improving the content, especially Mr. Chisale Sylvester William.
maintenance. The other benefits from the dam construction
Author’s contributions  WH, JSC and ATS were involved in conceptu-
are the increase in food security for the country, providing alization, methodology, software, data curation, writing and preparing
more income for local communities from recreational activi- the original draft, visualization, and investigation. HSL was responsi-
ties, fishery, and reduction in CO2 emission. ble for supervision, conceptualization, methodology, investigation, and
writing, reviewing, and editing.

Funding  The first author is supported by the Afghan PEACE pro-

Conclusions gramme of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Japan.

This study presents a package for water resource man- Data availability  Available upon requests.
agement in the less developed basin. The study con- Code availability  Not applicable.
tents start with hydrological modelling in the basin and

13
Applied Water Science (2023) 13:41 Page 15 of 16  41

Declarations  snowfed river basin of Nepal. Environ Earth Sci 77(1):1–20.

https://​doi.​org/​10.​1007/​s12665-​017-​7210-8
Conflict of interests  The authors declare that they have no conflict of Doe J (1962) Soil map of the world. Soil Horizons 3(2):20. https://​doi.​
interest. org/​10.​2136/​sh1962.​2.​0020
Doulabian S, Ghasemi Tousi E, Aghlmand R, Alizadeh B, Ghaderi
Open Access  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attri- Bafti A, Abbasi A (2021) Evaluation of integrating swat model
bution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adapta- into a multi-criteria decision analysis towards reliable rainwater
tion, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long harvesting systems. Water (Switzerland) 13(14):1–21. https://​doi.​
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, org/​10.​3390/​w1314​1935
provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes Duan Y, Liu T, Meng F, Luo M, Frankl A, De Maeyer P, Bao A, Kur-
were made. The images or other third party material in this article are ban A, Feng X (2018) Inclusion of modified snow melting and
included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated flood processes in the SWAT model. Water (Switzerland). https://​
otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in doi.​org/​10.​3390/​w1012​1715
the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not FAO (2016) The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Land Cover Atlas.
permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will In UNFAO (Issue January).
need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a Faramarzi M, Yang H, Schulin R, Abbaspour KC (2010) Modeling
copy of this licence, visit http://​creat​iveco​mmons.​org/​licen​ses/​by/4.​0/. wheat yield and crop water productivity in Iran: Implications
of agricultural water management for wheat production. Agric
Water Manag 97(11):1861–1875. https://​d oi.​o rg/​1 0.​1 016/j.​
agwat.​2010.​07.​002
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