Noor Ahmad Akhundzadah - Faculty of Environment, University of Kabul Jamal Mena Kart-e-Sakhi, Kabul Afghanistan.

The Helmand River Basin is the largest one from the five River Basins of Afghanistan located in arid southern part of the country closed to arid South Western Asia. Among the River Basins, the Helmand River Basin is extremely vulnerable to climate change. Most of the downstream area of the Basin is desert covered with sand dune highly expose to wind and sand storms. Due to climate impacts, the average historical temperature and wind storm show a positive trend inversely the mean annual historical precipitation and River discharge shows negative trend. For the climate change impacts assessment, mean annual temperature, precipitation, wind and gust storms trend and land cover change were investigated using existing historical data. At the end, this study proposed surface water conservation and green cover expansion as mitigation measure against the climate change impacts in both side of the border

Helmand River Basin, Climate Change Impacts, Wind Storms, Water Conservation, Mitigation