Kabul River
River in Afghanistan and Pakistan
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Related on Lably
Through Indus River, Drainage basin and Tributary
Names
Kabul River was known as the Kubha (Sanskrit: कुभा, romanized: Kubhā) and Cophen (Ancient Greek: Κωφήν, romanized: Kōphḗn; ) in ancient times.
The word Kubhā which is the ancient name of the river is both a Sanskrit and Avestan word. The word later changed to Kābul.
Al-Biruni, a Persian polymath, also called it "the River of Ghorwand".
The Kabul River later gave its name to the region and to the settlement of Kabul.
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Course
The Kabul River, which measures 700 kilometres or 435 miles long, rises in the Sanglākh Range at Sar Čašma, located at an elevation of 14,000 feet above sea level in the Kōh-e Bābā mountains northwest of Kabul. It passes through the cities of Kabul and Jalalabad in Afghanistan. Its large drainage basin covers the eastern provinces of Nangarhār, Kunar, Laghmān, Lōgar, Kabul, Kāpisā, Parwān, Panjshēr, and Bāmyān before it flows into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan some 25 kilometres (16 mi) north of the Durand Line border crossing at Torkham.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the river passes through the cities of Peshawar, Charsadda, and Nowshera. The major tributaries of the Kabul River are the Logar, Panjshir, Alingar, Surkhab, Chitral, Bara, and Swat rivers.
Hydrology
The Kabul River is little more than a trickle for most of the year, but swells in summer due to melting snows in the Hindu Kush Range. Its largest tributary is the Chitral River, which starts out as the Mastuj River, flowing from the Chiantar Glacier in Brughil Valley in Chitral, Pakistan and after flowing south into Afghanistan it is met by the Bashgal River flowing from Nurestan. The Chitral meets the Kabul near Jalalabad. In spite of the Chitral carrying more water than the Kabul, the river continues as the Kabul River after this confluence, mainly for the political and historical significance of the name. The annual mean discharge near Nowshehra just before it falls into Indus is 800 m3/s (28,000 cu ft/s); out of which Chitral River contributes over 288 m3/s (10,200 cu ft/s), while Swat River which joins it near Charsadda contributes over 280 m3/s (9,900 cu ft/s).
Dams
The Kabul River is impounded by several dams that were constructed in the 20th century. Three dams are located in the Kabul and Nangarhar provinces of Afghanistan, including the Surobi dam, a hydroelectric source for Kabul constructed 1957 with assistance by Germany, the Naghlu and the Darunta dams which were built by Soviet scientists in the 1960s. The Warsak Dam is also in the Peshawar Valley in Pakistan, approximately 20 km northwest of the city of Peshawar.
History
Expedition of Alexander the Great into Asia
In Arrian's The Campaigns of Alexander, the River Kabul is referred to as Κωφήν Kōphēn (Latin spelling Cophen). In the Second Book of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus, Apollonius fords the Cophen on his way from crossing the Caucasus to the Indus Valley.
Modern era
Since the 1990s, the river has experienced substantial droughts in summer. In approximately March 2019, ten of thousands of gallons of untreated sewage from the Makroyan Waste Water Treatment Plant has been dumped into the Kabul River each month, reportedly causing gastrointestinal issues among the 3,000 families that live along the river.