FASIC - Forum for Area Studies and Information Center

Afghanistan with 700,000 square kilometers (270,000 square miles) is about the size of France or Texas, and has a population officially estimated at 30.2 million. Landlocked, it lies between 29021’ – 38030’ N latitude and 60031’–750E longitude, bounded by the Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to the north and by Iran on the west. In the extreme northeast, Afghanistan has a common border with the People’s Republic of China. Many Pushtun and other tribes straddle the Durand Line, drawn in 1893, to the east and south.

On the map, the country resembles an irregularly shaped leaf hanging from the Wakhan Corridor at its stem. It encompasses approximately 637,397 square kilometers and is completely landlocked, surrounded by the Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Iran, and Pakistan. The nearest seaport is Karachi, Pakistan, almost 1,170 kilometers away. The country's extreme length from west to east is about 1,240 kilometers, including Wakhan. Its greatest width from north to south is approximately 565 kilometers. Rugged mountains called the Hindu Kush dominate the scenery of Afghanistan. The westernmost extension of the Karakorum and the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush Mountains begin in the Pamirs and run in a southwesterly direction for about 1920 km, before petering out in the vicinity of Herat where they are known as the Parapomisus.

Using Humlum's 1959 work as a basis, he divides the country into 11 geographic zones: the Wakhan Corridor Pamir Knot, Badakhshan, Central Mountains, Eastern Moun¬tains, Northern Mountains and Foothills, Southern Mountains and Foothills, Turkistan Plains, Herat Farah Lowlands, Sistan Basin Helmand Valley, Western Stony Deserts, and South¬western Sandy Deserts. The first six zones are connected to the Hindu Kush system. The rest of the zones comprise deserts and plains which surround the mountains in the north, west, and southwest.

This unique area belongs geographically to the greater Pamir Mountain System. The Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission of 1895-96 politically forced this zone on Amir Abdur Rehman Khan, so that at no point would they touch. Many writers indiscriminately lump the Wakhan Corridor and the Pamir Mountains together and fail to distinguish between the sub-zones. In reality, the Corridor is one geographic entity and the Pamir Mountains another, although the Wakhan leads directly into the Pamir. According to Humlum 82.9 percent of the Wakhan –Pamir area is above 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) and 17.1 percent between 6,000 and 10,000 feet (1,800 to 3,000 meters). Perpetual snow covers all the Pamir above 16,500 feet (5,000 meters) above sea level.

Geographically, Badakhshan stretches from the entrance of the Wakhan to Koh-i-Anjuman in the south and west, with the Amu Darya as boundary to the north. The Ab-i- Panja flows to the north near Ishkashim (entrance to the Wakhan) and cuts a large salient out of Central Asia as it patiently makes a parabolic swing to the west and south, thus avoiding the northeast mountains of Badakhshan.

High elevation over 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) constitute 27.5 percent of the terrain; 6,000 to 10,000 feet, 36.2 percent; 2,000 to 6,000 feet, 32 percent; 1,000 to 2,000 feet, 42 percent, as one approaches the Turkistan Plains.

The Central Mountains (mainly the Central and Western Hazarajat) extend roughly from Shibar Kotal through the Koh-i-Baba range. A series of passes leads across this great range, crossed by many conquerors, including Alexander, Genghis Khan, Babur and Tamerlane. The two major passes are Shibar and Salang. No motorable road went through the Hindu Kush until the region of King Mohammad Nadir Shah (1929-33), when the Afghans completed a long-time dream by building a road which traveled circuitously via Shibar Pass through the Hindu Kush.

West of Shibar Pass, the Koh-i-Baba mountains, backbone of Afghanistan and a rugged contain sources of several of the country’s more important river systems: the Kabul, Hilmand- Arghandab and Hari Rud. The highest peaks in the Central Mountains vary between 14,000 and 17,000 feet (4,270 and 5,180 meters), with the summit of the Koh-i- Baba range at Shah Foladi, about twenty miles from Ak Sarat Pass.

Four Major valleys dominate the human geographic patterns of the Eastern Mountains.

Kabul (an area of high level basins, with altitude varying from 5,000 to 12,000 feet(1,500 to 3,600 meters) is surrounded by mountains of old rugged crystalline and metamorphic Paleozoic rocks. The Paghman Range sits northwest of Kabul, with the Safed Koh to the southeast and the Koh-i-Baba rising in the west. The Kabul River flows through Tang-i-Gharu, one of the more spectacular gorges in Afghanistan, to Jalalabad.

The second major valley includes the wide basin of Koh Daman
and Charikar and leads to the steep side valleys of Nijrao and Tagao, where farmers practice terraced agriculture. The Panjsher Valley serves as a major north-south route used by nomads summering in Badakshan and
wintering in the Laghman-Jalalabad area. Until 1961, many of these groups crossed the border into Pakistan to winter in the Peshawar Valley and points south.

The third major valley lies in an east-west trend from Charikar to Shibar Pass. Here the sedimentary basin is flatter and with higher terraces than the Panjsher.

Nuristan (formerly called Kafiristan), a region of wild, narrow mountain valleys, accessible only by foot trails except on the periphery where new roads have been constructed, consists of five major north-south valleys and about thirty east-west lateral valleys leading into the major valleys.

This region is formed as the river systems of the Kabul and Hilmand debouch into the plains and semi deserts becomes deserts, with agricultural villages studding the “tooth paste squeezes” of the rivers and tributaries. The area mainly embraces Kandahar, Ghazni and much of Paktya.

The northern foothills abruptly drop from 4,000 to 6,000 feet into stony plains about 1,200 feet above sea level. The elevation drops less than 1,000 feet in 50 miles. Scattered dunes sometimes occur in the pebbly deserts and conversely. Sand drifts and dunes near Andkhui less than 20 miles or (32 kilometers) from the Amu Darya. To the east, near Khist Tapa, the sand pinches out about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from the Soviet border.

Actually an extension of the Khurasan Region of the Iranian Plateau, the Herat-Farah complex consists mainly of mountain ranges and low hills, sporadically rugged but generally rounded, separated by broad, flat valleys. The area is approximately enclosed by the Hari Rud to the north, the Khash Rud to the south and the Central Mountains to the east. The region is intensively cultivated where water is available.

Most of the low lying (average elevation about 1,700 feet, or 520 meters) Sistan Basin lies in Iran. The eastern boundary of the Sistan Basin penetrates the edge of the Dasht-i-Margo (“Desert of Death”) along a sharp scarp with the height varying from 30 feet (9 meters) to several hundred feet. The Sistan Basin, a zone of intermittent lakes, fresh water and brackish marshes interspersed between stony and sandy deserts, forms a part of the great inland Hilmand drainage basin.

Mainly uninhabited and relatively unexplored, the Dasht-i-Kash, Dasht-i-Margo and adjacent areas are hot, waterless, barren, varnished-pebble-strewn deserts, which seldom rise over 3,000 feet above sea level. Spring flash floods cut deep depression in the sandy clay and slit underlying the heavily cemented.

South and east of the Hilmand River lies Ragistan, the “Land of Sand”, an area of shifting sand dunes with an underlying pebble-conglomerate floor. The moving dunes reach heights of between 50 to 100 feet (15 and 30 meters). Level area between the dunes, called pat (which also means desert in Baluchi) menace travelers.

As for as the weather is concerned, things are much simpler. Afghanistan has four distinct seasons. Winter days from December through February or generally sunny and crisp, with several heavy snows in the mountains. Temperatures plummet as soon as the sun set, so heavy warm clothing is a must in Afghanistan in winter. Spring brings out the fruit blossom, the white flowers and green grasses everywhere during March, April and May. Afghanistan is then at its loveliest, but heavy rains make travel off the paved roads extremely hazardous. Summer days are cool and comfortable in the mountains through out June, July and August, but very hot and dusty both north and south. Again, fluctuations are great so that the light wraps for evening or almost always needed. A riot of color brightens the fall month from September through November, probably Afghanistan’s ideal traveling months.

Water is the key to the distribution, proliferation and perpetuation of animal and plant life and its absence limits agricultural and pasture land. Its source in Afghanistan lies in the high watershed of the Central Mountains. Afghanistan’s problem is not insufficient water, for enough exists to increase productivity of current acreage and to add many thousands of marginal acres to production. There are four main river systems exist: Amu Darya, Hari Rud, Hilmand, Arghandab and Kabul. Only the Kabul River has an outlet to the sea; it joins the Indus system at Attock, Pakistan, but the other three are entirely inland systems.

The Kabul River System forms a part of the greater Indus River system. The Kabul River (about 225 miles or 350 kilometers long) flows from its headwaters at Sar Chrisman just east of the entrance to the Unai Pass (about 14,000 feet or 4,270 meters, above sea level), through the Kabul Valley and then into some of the more treacherous Afghan territory, including the Tang-i-Gharu, on its way to the post- World War II German built dam Sarobi.

Environmental issues in Afghanistan predate the political turmoil of the past few decades. Forests and wetlands have been depleted by centuries of grazing and farming, practices which have only increased with modern population growth. In Afghanistan, environmental conservation and economic concerns are not at odds; with 80% of the population dependent on herding or farming, the welfare of the environment is critical to the economic welfare of the people. In 2007, the World Health Organization released a report ranking Afghanistan lowest among non-African nations in deaths from environmental hazards. Two decades of war have laid waste Afghanistan's environment so badly that its reconstruction is now compromised.
To date, no specific environmental study has been carried out in Afghanistan. The lack of information on the quality of air, water, vegetation, land, and other environmental factors could be attributed to the non-existence of organizations or agencies devoted to this issue. Studies revealed that until at least 2000 B.C.E, the land of Afghanistan was covered with cedar-rich forests, and had a different pattern of climatic and life support system than that of today. As countries mark World Environment Day on June 5, conservationists and officials say Afghanistan faces many and unique challenges. The post-Taliban government has passed the country’s first environmental law and set up a protection agency, but a lack of capacity and expertise dog efforts to recover from the past and cope with the future.

The population depends on forests for fuel wood and the revenue generated by export of pistachios and almonds, which grow in natural woodlands in the central and northern regions. The rural assessment found widespread loss of forest had occurred across much of the country during the past 30 years. The Badghis and Takhar provinces have lost more than 50% of pistachio woodland. During the conflicts of the past few decades, residents and military forces have used wood for fuel, and the military forces have cleared trees which could have provided hiding places for ambushes from opposing forces. Further, the use of the woodlands for grazing ground and the collection of nuts for export apparently prevent new pistachio trees from growing.
Before the conflict, three percent of the country was covered in natural forest, this has been cut back to 1.5 percent through illegal logging and degradation including from people fleeing war. As forest cover decreases, the land becomes less productive, threatening the livelihood of the rural population. Loss of vegetation also creates to a higher risk of floods, which not only endanger the people, but cause soil erosion and decrease the amount of land available for agriculture.
Smugglers and mafia cut trees and took them to neighboring countries. The unlawful timber trade is continuing, with some reports of police involvement. According to BBC in Jan 29, 2003 more than half the forests in three Afghan provinces have been destroyed in 25 years. Almost no trees could be detected in Badghis and Takhar provinces in 2002 by satellite instruments, compared with 55% and 37% land cover respectively in 1977.

For the majority of people in Afghanistan, natural resources are the source of their livelihood and the basis of their existence. Many of the larger mammals in the country are categorized by IUCN as globally threatened. These include snow leopard, the markhor, Marco Polo sheep, urial, and Asiatic black bear. Other species of interest are e.g. ibex, wolf, and brown bear. Most of the Marco Polo and Ibex are being poached for food, whereas wolves, Snow leopards and bears are being killed for damage prevention. The fur, however, is being sold to aid workers and foreign soldiers as souvenir on local markets.
With two million returning refugees in 2002 and a further 1.5 million expected in 2003, pressure on Afghanistan’s natural resources are set to increase further. The UNEP Report makes it clear that environmental restoration must play a major part in the reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
Now, further steps will have to follow to put the UNEP recommendations into action. Together with UNEP and the Government of Afghanistan, CIC will focus on a political, legal and practical base for long-term conservation and sustainable use of wildlife. With little government infrastructure to discourage hunting, and habitat disappearing because of conflict and drought, much of the country’s wildlife is at risk. In 2006, Afghanistan and the Wildlife Conservation Society began a three-year project to protect wildlife and habitats along the Wakhan Corridor and Central Plateau regions. Smuggling of falcons with about 1,000 of the birds trapped in the country’s deserts every year and smuggled into Pakistan en route to the United Arab Emirates where they can fetch 500 to 30,000 dollars each. Another victim has been the endangered snow leopard, native to this area. Before the war Afghanistan had 500 snow leopards, now there is no exact figure but they are estimated at 80 to 120. The pelts of the elusive animals are however not too hard to come by. In one of dozens of fur shops in Kabul that are filled with sheep, mink and fox, a shopkeeper recently displayed one priced at 2,000 dollars.

Two thirds of the landscape of Afghanistan is occupied by mountainous terrains with little or no vegetation, typical of an arid country. For this reason, the vegetation in these terrains plays a vital role in the ecosystem. For example, if we consider the role of pistachio (Pistacia vera, yielding) among hundreds of other floras, we find out that it not only provides climatic and environmental stabilization over the areas of its growth, but eases the life of thousands of families by providing them with a natural source of income.
Half of the remaining parts of the country's landscape are deserts, which are hostile environments. The rest are farmlands and pastures. At present, only six percent of the fifteen percent of agricultural land in Afghanistan is under cultivation. In the past twenty years, the agricultural areas have been drastically decreased. It is estimated that we lost thirty percent of our farmlands and pastures, either by abandonment or degradation. The farmlands in the province of Kabul have been lost due to degradation resulting from the expansion of the urban institutions. This led to a drastic change of the previously dominant climatic and environmental factors in this region.

Today, the primary threat to Afghanistan’s water supply is the droughts from 1998-2003 and 2006, which created food shortages for millions. The resulting agricultural crises throughout central Afghanistan have driven major migrations from rural to urban areas. In response to drought, deep wells have been drilled, further draining groundwater resources, which rely on rain for replenishment.
By 2003, 99% of the Sistan wetlands were dry, another result of continued drought and lack of water management. The wetlands, an important habitat for breeding and migrant waterfowl including the Dalmatian pelican and the marbled teal, have provided water for agricultural irrigation for at least 5000 years. The drought has compounded a state of widespread natural resource degradation: lowered water tables, dried up wetlands, denuded forests, eroded land and depleted wildlife populations. The internationally significant Sistan wetlands - shared between Afghanistan and Iran - are now almost completely dry.
The Helmand River, the main tributary of the wetlands which drains 31 percent of Afghanistan's land area, has run as much as 98 percent below its annual average in recent years. The drought has compounded problems caused by uncoordinated management of the river basin's dams and irrigation schemes during two decades of conflict. Without a stable source of water, much of the natural vegetation of the Sistan basin has died or been collected for fuel. This has contributed to soil erosion and movement of sand onto roads and into settlements and irrigated areas.

Air pollution does not constitute a major problem in Afghanistan, but its reliance on inexpensive energy has created some issues. Most vehicles run on diesel fuel, and household energy often rely on burning wood and other materials. As a result, air pollution in urban areas is visible and may pose health issues. Even though Afghanistan itself doesn't have any industry to create air pollutants, smog is a common phenomenon in most of the urban areas. Trans-boundary air pollution is another concern. Due to this, we receive enormous amounts of pollutants originating from the Aral sedimentary basin, Iran, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan's industrial parks. How much of the pesticides originating from these countries and worldwide end up on our lands and environment through air currents and rains, is another mystery that is adding to our environmental crises. Chemical weapons have been used during the Afghan war with the Soviets, and this caused severe short-term damage to our environment and ecosystem. Air pollution is fed by roads choked with traffic and the burning of wood and plastic in the absence of electricity; garbage is piled in the streets and rivers; water supplies are often filthy.

Urban populations have swelled in the past several years. Migrants have come from drought-ravaged rural areas, and around 1.8 million refugees returned to the country (over 500,000 to Kabul alone) after the fall of the Taliban government in 2002. In 2002, the United Nations Environmental Program found that a lack of waste management systems was creating dangerous conditions in several urban areas. In Kabul’s districts 5 and 6, household and medical waste was discarded on streets. Human waste was contained in open sewers, which flowed into the Kabul River and contaminated the city’s drinking water.
Urban dumpsites are used in lieu of managed landfills in Kabul, Kandahar and Herat, often without protection of nearby rivers and groundwater supplies. Medical waste from hospitals is disposed in the dumpsites with the rest of the cities’ waste, contaminating water and air with bacteria and viruses.
Lack of sewage management is not unique to Kabul. In urban areas, open sewers are common while wastewater treatment is not. Much of the urban water supply is contaminated by Escherichia coli and other bacteria.
Oil refineries are another source of water contamination. In Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif, crude oil spills and leaks are uncontained and unsafe levels of hydrocarbons reach residential water supplies.