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 releases at the artificial head of the reservoir. The project, though not initially designed as one, also works as a flood control structure by retaining water during the flood-prone season of Monsoon. On December 5, 1971, the dam was damaged due to a bombing raid conducted by the Indian Air Force during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. This was against the international convention that large water reservoirs would not be targeted in war. As a consequence, the hydro project was temporarily out of service. From the data available in 2009, the project had generated 183.551 billion units of low cost