Topography of Pakistan which facilitated the emergence of intensive cultivation despite semi-arid conditions, resulted in important social and political transformations. Satellite image of the Tarbela Dam Pakistan has two major river dams: the Tarbela Dam on the Indus River, near the early Buddhist site at Taxila, and the Mangla Dam on the Jhelum River, where Punjab borders Azad Kashmir built as part of the Indus Basin Project. The Warsak Dam on the Kabul River near Peshawar is smaller. These dams, along with a series of headworks and barrages built by the British and expanded since independence of Pakistan in 1947, are of vital
Mangla Dam stemmed from the seasonal variations in the river flow due to monsoons and the absence of storage reservoirs to conserve the vast amounts of surplus water during those periods of high river discharge. The Mangla Dam was the first of the two dams constructed to reduce this shortcoming and strengthen the irrigation system of the country as part of the Indus Basin Project, the other being Tarbela Dam on River Indus. Mangla Dam was constructed at a cost of Rs. 15.587 billion (US$1.473 billion) with the funding being provided by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. The dam