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Length: 700 kilometres (400 miles). One of the main tributaries of the Indus. The Jhelum has its source in a spring in the Indian Kashmir Himalayas near Vernag. At first it flows though deep valleys, but then the river emerges into the flat-bottomed Vale of Kashmir and fills Lake Wular. Below the lake the Jhelum cuts right through the Pir Panjal mountain range in a deep gorge some 2000 m (7000 feet) deep. This is called a superimposed course, meaning that the river flowed south before this part of the Himalayas began to rise and it has maintained its course, cutting down into the mountains as they formed. The river then flows from India to Muzaffarabad in Pakistan. Here the Jhelum joins with the Kishanganga River and begins to flow southward. The Jhelum flows through another gorge (in the Siwalik Range) near Mangla and then opens out into a braided river as it flows over the plains to the south. Here the town of Jhelum was sited beside the river. The Jhelum is an important river because of the water it brings for irrigation to the parched lands of northeastern Pakistan and also for the hydro-electric power resources. The largest dam is the Mangla dam and reservoir. Two major irrigation canals leave the Mangla reservoir: the Upper Jhelum canal and the Lower Jhelum canal. The Mangla Dam is an earth embankment dam which was completed in 1967. It is one of the two largest dams (along with the Tarbela Dam) on the Indus river system. The Mangla Dam is 138 m (453 feet) high and 3 kilometres (2 miles) across. It holds back 7 thousand billion cubic m of water. |
