Performance Evaluation Methods for Check-Dams in Balochistan: A Review

This study aims to illustrate and present various techniques for evaluating the performance of check-dams and proposes some suitable approaches for impact assessment of dams built in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. These dams were built during the last decade to overcome the challenges of water scarcity and depleting aquifers due to excessive Groundwater (GW) extraction. It was expected that these dams would recharge the GW resources and save the aquifer system from collapsing. Check-dams have traditionally been the permanent source of water within the province. A check-dam is used to delay the floodwater runoff to make it available for domestic and agriculture purposes or to recharge GW. The water along these dams permeates into the ground to keep the aquifer genuinely stable throughout the year. The data were collected based on studies of published research papers and reports of international organizations containing key characteristics of performance evaluation techniques. This review will help to evaluate procedures, policy, and governance interventions in Balochistan by comparing them with the adopted practices in other regions of the world and its impact on the well-being of the society. In this paper, the performance evaluation of check-dams for specific cases is presented. The knowledge acquired will be utilized to highlight state-of-the-art practices and to identify the need for further research in this field.


INTRODUCTION
W is a reliable resource in terms of its availability throughout the year. This is the reason that it is known as one of the important and dependable water supply sources for all climatic regions all around the world [1]. It is available in some quantity almost everywhere [2]. In most of the arid and semi-arid regions of the world, the interaction between surface water and GW plays a significant role in the ecohydrological system [3][4][5]. In many areas of the world including Pakistan, GW is considered as the primary source of drinking water supply, agriculture, and industrial uses [6]. Several regions of Pakistan are dependent on groundwater for drinking and 1 U. S Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan. Email: a venguspanhwar23@gmail.com (Corresponding Author), b arjumand.uspcasw@faculty.muet.edu.pk, c asmatullah@faculty.muet.edu.pk agriculture purposes [7], and its usage contributes about US$ 1.3 billion to the national economy per year as an agricultural output [7,8]. The utilization of GW for irrigation purposes in Pakistan has a long history especially in Balochistan province where GW is considered as the only dependable source of water to meet both agricultural and domestic needs. Not long ago, shallow GW table of about 7-10 meters in the province was a reality, and local people used to extract water easily through open wells with rope and container, Persian wheels, karezes, responding pumps, and hand pumps [9]. This convenience, on the other hand, caused overexploitation of this precious resource and a drastic decline of water in streams, lakes, and aquifers or GW storages has become another reality. For people who have witnessed the GW abundance in the province will be shocked to know that a continued overdraft of GW is causing a decline of the water table at rates up to 3 meters/annum [9]. Some development programs that were initiated in the province to benefit farmers proved to be harmful to water resources. The electrification program in the rural areas was among them that became detrimental for GW resources and resulted in large-scale drilling of tube wells [9].
The number of tube wells was increased due to the establishment of the National Electricity Grid System (NEGS) in the 70s. Since current statistics are not available, an old study is referred here that reported that during 2001-2002 Balochistan had 25,734 tube wells in which 11,371 were operated at diesel while others were run by electricity [10]. The study done by Ahmed [10] in 2005, based on 17 years of data, also estimated the yearly growth rate of 6.7 and 7.4% for electric and diesel-worked tube-wells, respectively. Looking at these figures, it is likely that since 2005 these values would have escalated even further.
Another reason for GW depletion as reported by Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) was failing of the government to construct new water reservoirs and dams in the province [11]. Not only the humans were responsible for this calamity, but nature had its role at as well in aggravating the already grave situation. The changes in the climate with either insufficient precipitation or extreme rainfall events caused either long dry spells or floods in the regions.
To address water issues of the province, the Government of Balochistan (GoB) has initiated several projects, including 100 -Dams project, to construct check-dams on the alluvial fans to reestablish a balance between the discharge and recharge of groundwater aquifers. These dams were built during the last decade to overcome the challenges of water scarcity and depleting aquifers due to excessive GW extraction in the arid zones of the province. Balochistan Irrigation Department is the execution agency of this project, whereas, the project is sponsored by the Ministry of Water and Power, Government of Pakistan, Islamabad [12]. It was expected that these dams would recharge the GW resources and save the aquifer system from collapsing. This paper provides a review of different methods reported in the literature for evaluating the performance of check-dams in improving GW recharge, livelihood, and socio-economic conditions. This study will become a prerequisite for advanced analysis to identify the observation and strengths of these methods and suggest sustainable solutions to measure the effectiveness of these methods.

Motivation for Review
The GW exploitation in Balochistan has become a serious issue, and it can be easily speculated that with the current rate of withdrawal, soon there will be no accessible GW [13]. As indicated by Balochistan Conservation Strategy, more than 90% of all easily accessible water resources, including the share of Indus water and the GW storage, will ultimately be utilized in the next 50 years if the present rate of utilization continues [14]. The 100 -dams project was initiated in June 2009 with a plan to construct 100 dams (20 Dams in Package-I) in the province over 6 years. The modified cost of Package-I is Rs. 2,154.080 million [12]. Till to date, 20 dams have already been constructed. Since an enormous amount of investment was involved in this project, the time has come to evaluate the performance of the built dams against their predefined objectives. For performance evaluation, it is imperative to review those practices, which are being employed in other regions of the world so that a meaningful comparison can be made.

Scope of Review
In this study, different methods for evaluating the performance of check-dams are described. Since check dam is not a new concept and much literature could be found in this area but we mainly focused on the article which closely matches with the agroclimatic condition of Balochistan and socio-economic condition of the society. The data were collected based on studies of the published research papers and reports of international organizations containing key characteristics of performance evaluation techniques being employed all over the world. The objective of this review was a careful screening of the published articles to compile searched methods, review their scope in selecting the relevant performance indicators,

Importance of the Study
The growing demand for irrigation water and domestic purposes during the last few decades is met by introducing new sources of water [15], but the cost of technology and environmental factors limit the achievement of the demand [16]. The GW dependency is expanding particularly in places where surface water is constrained, and precipitation is erratic. Several regions of the world are experiencing a decline in their GW table due to its over-exploitation [17,18]. Many researchers have called for similar studies to check the performance of check-dams constructed in other countries that how these dams impacted the GW recharge and the lifestyle of individuals living in the surrounding areas [19]. Moreover, many scientists and climatologists have presented a clear indication and scientific evidence about the global warming of the earth that is causing variations in the climatic patterns [20]. Change in climatic conditions is said to have increasing detrimental impacts on the freshwater supplies worldwide [21]. It is predicted that land area with rising water stress will become greater than twice of the land area with diminishing water stress by the 2050 year [22]. Therefore, in dealing with extreme events, the developing countries are the most vulnerable to these changing climatic patterns due to their limited adaptive capacities [23].
Moreover, water temperatures and extremities in weather pattern may cause many hazards such as droughts and affect water quality and quality especially in arid and semi-arid areas [24]. This situation may, in turn, affect food availability, stability, access, and consumption [25] influencing society, economy, environments, and human health. GW recharges may also get delayed in water stresses area [26].

Impacts of Check-Dams in Predominating Arid Zones of Asia
Kalamkar et al. [27]

Local Studies in Pakistan
Ashraf et al. [16] evaluated the Karez irrigation scheme in Balochistan-Pakistan to know if that is performing well or not? He also studied the possible impacts on the local community regarding the performance of the scheme in addressing the present issues and proposed necessary measures accordingly. Under this scheme, the provincial Irrigation and Power Department (IPD) was responsible for providing surface water by constructing perennial canals, small check-dams, and flood control irrigation schemes in different parts of the province. A survey of the farmers was conducted to know the performance and constraints of the scheme. Based on this study, a need for improvement to sustain Karez system by regular cleaning and protecting it from floods was identified and appropriate measures by adopting available technologies and agronomic practices to overcome the shortcomings were suggested. This fact implies that the interventions done in the province to restore Karez irrigation systems are not up-to-the-mark and there is a need for a holistic and integrated approach to identify the problematic areas and their possible solutions.
Another study was conducted by Ashraf et al.
[31] to assess the impact of three dams in the Pothwar, region of Punjab-Pakistan. These dams were constructed by the Punjab Government for the development of agriculture, GW recharge, and to help future managers for efficient and sustainable use of dams in Pakistan. In this regard, pre-tested questionnaire survey from farmers was conducted, and secondary data such as precipitation, inflows, and outflows were collected from relevant organizations to ascertain annual water released from the three dams and annual precipitation to meet crop water requirements. The results showed that there is an increase in the cropping frequency and crop yield. Also, the GW was elevated in the area which led to a rise in the number of wells.  Table 1 summarizes the review of performance evaluation methods for check-dams found in the literature. Table 2 summarizes the performance indicators for evaluating check-dams. It was also observed that one objective is being addressed by more than one indicator, and similarly, one indicator is serving many objectives.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The purpose of writing this paper was to review the available literature on the effectiveness of check-dams that may solve GW recharging issues in the waterstressed area in the long run. In this study, state-of-theart practices, reviewed in national and international literature, are highlighted, and a need for further research on performance evaluation of Balochistan's check-dams using appropriate indicators and effective methods is realized. This review also presents various key performance indicators, used by different researchers for choosing appropriate techniques for performance evaluation of check-dams in Balochistan. Various individual and integrated approaches were proposed by the researchers from studies conducted in the predominant arid regions of Asia and most common of these were on-site interviews.
Construction of check-dams on larger scale in Balochistan is relatively new and therefore performance evaluation of these check-dams in Balochistan has not been widely studied. The studies cited here have used single parameter approach for the performance evaluation of check-dams, i.e., either groundwater recharge, control of soil erosion, or socio-economic impacts instead of using an integrated approach. Moreover, the following observations were made during the literature review; (i) There is a need for a holistic assessment based on all relevant performance indicators. Most studies, done so far, addressed only one indicator for this purpose. (ii) None has addressed the impact of dams on the lower riparian areas that may include diminishing water supply in the downstream region. If people living in the lower reaches are not allowed to use dam water, then their rights will be violated. Presence of policy interventions in this regard should not be overlooked. (iii) The lower performance of the dams may be due to many reasons including unsuitable site selection for dams' construction. Therefore, before any impact assessment studies, the criteria for dam site selection should be evaluated. In case of Balochistan, the site selection studies for 100 dams' project may be consulted to uncover design related faults (if there exist any). (iv) Small dams may also affect river flows that need to be studied. (v) Impact on ecology is another aspect that has been neglected widely.
Therefore, it can be concluded that although all these studies are valuable, these did not follow a holistic approach by including all critical aspects of performance evaluation. It is, therefore, necessary to first identify all possible performance indicators so that the questionnaire developed for future study will include all pertinent questions. Studies performed following these above mentioned guidelines, would  677 have more value in evaluating the performance of constructed check-dams. One of the reasons for limited scoped studies may be the cost involved in collecting data related to all relevant indicators. Field studies are time and resource intensive and limited in adverse weather and law and order situations. Some remote areas are also not easily accessible. To supplement field collected information, remote sensing data and techniques can be utilized at minimal costs. Remote sensing has become one of the efficient and cost-effective techniques after the availability of high-resolution data free of cost. Thus, for countries like Pakistan with budgetary constraints, the need is to use efficient but cost-effective methods. It is, therefore, suggested that state-of-the-art geospatial techniques should be employed for analyzing dams that are located in remote areas. More detailed field surveys at selected locations with easy access should be carried out to validate the findings. water quality in Pakistan", Eastern