Indus Water Treaty: Challenges and Prospects

The growing water scarcity in India and Pakistan and emerging climatic and environmental changes to the Indus basin rivers system are causing a great stress on smoothing working of Indus water treaty 1960. Pakistan Being a lower riparian, facing the issue as to how to reinterpret the Indus Waters Treaty without giving up its water rights. The paper discusses that following the inbuilt constraints of a lower riparian, Pakistan need to adopt a multi-pronged strategy following water rationale to secure its water rights within the scope of the treaty. For this; effective implementation and enhancement of Article VI, VII, constructive diplomatic and political strategy,efficient water uses and sustainable water resource management in Indus-Pakistan.

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Indus Water Treaty: Past Present and Future

Journal of Global Economy ◽

10.1956/jge.v16i4.601 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (4) ◽

pp. 61-86

Author(s):

Shahnawaz Mantoo

Keyword(s):

Historical Background ◽

Indus Basin ◽

Boundary Line ◽

Political Issue ◽

The World Bank ◽

The World ◽

Water Treaty ◽

Area Of Concern ◽

Indus Waters Treaty ◽

Irrigation Waters

Natural resources are fundamental and imperative for the existence and evolution of human civilizations. Water being most important scarce natural resource has become a contentious political issue in the world. South Asia being a less connected and conflict ridden region, Water related conflicts have been a dominant area of concern. At the time of independence, the boundary line between the two newly created independent countries, i.e. Pakistan and India was drawn right across the Indus Basin, leaving Pakistan as the lower riparian. Dispute thus arose between the two countries regarding the utilization of irrigation waters from existing facilities. The negotiations held under the World Bank, culminated in the signing of Indus Waters Treaty in 1960. The paper will examine the historical background of the treaty; the contentious developments which have arose over the years and will also discuss the Kashmir perspective on the treaty. The paper will also evaluate the present disagreeing arguments of both states over the treaty.

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Challenges to Indus Waters Treaty and Options for Pakistan

Global Regional Review ◽

10.31703/grr.2019(iv-iv).27 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol IV (IV) ◽

pp. 249-255

Author(s):

Muhammad Nawaz Bhatti ◽

Ghulam Mustafa ◽

Muhammad Waris

Keyword(s):

World Bank ◽

Water Rights ◽

Hydroelectric Power ◽

Indian Government ◽

Jammu And Kashmir ◽

The World Bank ◽

Run Off ◽

The World ◽

Water Treaty ◽

Indus Waters Treaty

The Indus water treaty was signed on 19th September 1960 by India and Pakistan under the aegis of the World Bank. Bilateral principles regarding water apportionment between both states were ensured by the Treaty. As a result, waters of the eastern rivers; Sutlej, Beas and Ravi, were assigned exclusively to India, while Pakistan received exclusive water rights of the western rivers; the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab but India is allowed to irrigate some specific land in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir and to generate hydroelectric power through run-off-the river projects. Following the Uri incident, the Indian government and media are generating ideas to discard the Indus water treaty. This paper focuses on legal and international implications if India attempts to unilaterally revoke the Treaty.

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Adjudicating infrastructure: Treaties, territories, hydropolitics

Environment and Planning E Nature and Space ◽

10.1177/2514848619864913 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2 (4) ◽

pp. 831-849 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Majed Akhter

Keyword(s):

River System ◽

Primary Objective ◽

Indus Basin ◽

International Court ◽

Treaty Interpretation ◽

Water Treaty ◽

Legal Strategies ◽

Indus Waters Treaty ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship

In 2013, an international Court of Arbitration delivered a two-part decision on the legality of the Kishenganga Hydro-Electric Plant, located in the internationally disputed territory of Kashmir. The court was convened under procedures detailed in the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, a landmark international water treaty between Pakistan and India mediated by the World Bank in the 1950s. The Kishenganga case is part of the ongoing hydropolitical competition between Pakistan and India over the use of Indus waters and the development of new infrastructures on the river system. This paper draws on critical water geography and geopolitical theory to guide a close, critical, and contextual reading of competing interpretations of the purpose and objective of the Indus Waters Treaty made during the Kishenganga case. It argues that two specific geopolitical imperatives powerfully shaped the legal strategies of state elites: downstream territorialism and basin developmentalism. Pakistani lawyers drew on the treaty negotiation archives to argue that its primary objective and purpose was the protection of vulnerable downstream territories. Indian lawyers, however, drew on the text of the treaty and the archives to argue the primary objective was the maximum economic development of the Indus Basin. I also discuss the relationship of these imperatives with David Harvey’s influential understanding of capitalist states acting under the dual pressures of the “territorial” and “capitalist” imperatives. By analyzing how geopolitical imperatives shape strategies of treaty interpretation, the paper develops a legal and geopolitical contribution to critical water geography. The paper also makes a methodological contribution by demonstrating how treaty negotiation archives represent a rich and underutilized resource for hydropolitical analysis.

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An improved framework to predict river flow time series data

PeerJ ◽

10.7717/peerj.7183 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

pp. e7183 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Hafiza Mamona Nazir ◽

Ijaz Hussain ◽

Ishfaq Ahmad ◽

Muhammad Faisal ◽

Ibrahim M. Almanjahie

Keyword(s):

Time Series ◽

Water Resource Management ◽

River Flow ◽

Time Series Data ◽

Flow Time ◽

Indus Basin ◽

Series Data ◽

Percentage Error ◽

Empirical Bayesian ◽

Noise Characteristics

Due to non-stationary and noise characteristics of river flow time series data, some pre-processing methods are adopted to address the multi-scale and noise complexity. In this paper, we proposed an improved framework comprising Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise-Empirical Bayesian Threshold (CEEMDAN-EBT). The CEEMDAN-EBT is employed to decompose non-stationary river flow time series data into Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs). The derived IMFs are divided into two parts; noise-dominant IMFs and noise-free IMFs. Firstly, the noise-dominant IMFs are denoised using empirical Bayesian threshold to integrate the noises and sparsities of IMFs. Secondly, the denoised IMF’s and noise free IMF’s are further used as inputs in data-driven and simple stochastic models respectively to predict the river flow time series data. Finally, the predicted IMF’s are aggregated to get the final prediction. The proposed framework is illustrated by using four rivers of the Indus Basin System. The prediction performance is compared with Mean Square Error, Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE). Our proposed method, CEEMDAN-EBT-MM, produced the smallest MAPE for all four case studies as compared with other methods. This suggests that our proposed hybrid model can be used as an efficient tool for providing the reliable prediction of non-stationary and noisy time series data to policymakers such as for planning power generation and water resource management.

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An Engineering Perspective of Water Sharing Issues in Pakistan

Water ◽

10.3390/w12020477 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 477 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Muhammad Tariq ◽

Nick van de Giesen ◽

Shahmir Janjua ◽

Muhammad Shahid ◽

Rashid Farooq

Keyword(s):

Water Availability ◽

Water Distribution ◽

Water Footprint ◽

Water Shortage ◽

Agricultural Products ◽

Indus Basin ◽

Effective Measure ◽

Allocation Policy ◽

Water Sharing ◽

Water Treaty

Water sharing within the states/provinces of a country and cross-border is unavoidable. Conflicts between the sharing entities might turn more severe due to additional dependency on water, growing population, and reduced availability as a result of climate change at many locations. Pakistan, being an agricultural country, is severely water stressed and heading toward a worsening situation in the near future. Pakistan is heading toward water scarcity as water availability in the Indus basin is becoming critical. Being a downstream riparian of India and Afghanistan in the Indus basin, water availability depends on the releases of water from both countries. The Indus Water Treaty is governing the water distribution rights between India and Pakistan. However, there exists no proper agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan and the construction of new dams on the Kabul River is another threat to water availability to Pakistan. Correct implementation of the Indus Water Treaty with India is required, together with an effective agreement with Afghanistan about the water sharing. In addition to water shortage, poor management of water resources, inequitable sharing of water, lack of a systematic approach, old-fashioned irrigation practices, and growing agricultural products with large water footprints are all exacerbating the problem. The water shortage is now increasingly countered by the use of groundwater. This sudden high extraction of groundwater is causing depletion of the groundwater table and groundwater quality issues. This water shortage is exacerbating the provincial conflicts over water, such as those between Punjab and Sindh provinces. At one end, a uniform nationwide water allocation policy is required. At the same time, modern irrigation techniques and low-water-footprint agricultural products should be promoted. A fair water-pricing mechanism of surface water and groundwater could be an effective measure, whereas a strict policy on groundwater usage is equally important. Political will and determination to address the water issues are required. The solutions must be based on transparency and equity, by using engineering approaches, combined with comprehensive social support. To develop a comprehensive water strategy, a dedicated technopolitical institute to strengthen the capabilities of nationwide expertise and address the issues on a regular basis is required to overcome the complex and multidimensional water-related problems of the country.

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Scenario Analysis of Initial Water-Rights Allocation to Improve Regional Water Productivities

Water ◽

10.3390/w11061312 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (6) ◽

pp. 1312 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Tienan Li ◽

Xueting Zeng ◽

Cong Chen ◽

Xiangmin Kong ◽

Junlong Zhang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Water Policy ◽

Water Resource Management ◽

Probability Distributions ◽

Water Productivity ◽

Water Rights ◽

Risk Attitude ◽

Risk Attitudes ◽

Practical Case ◽

Initial Water ◽

Model Based

In this study, an initial water-rights allocation (IWRA) model is proposed for adjusting the traditional initial water-rights empowerment model based on previous water intake permits, with the aim of improving the productivity of water resources under population growth and economic development. A stochastic scenario with Laplace criterion mixed fuzzy programming (SSLF) is developed into an IWRA model to deal with multiple uncertainties and complexities, which includes dynamic water demand, changing water policy, adjusted tradable water rights, the precise risk attitude of policymakers, development of the economy, and their interactions. SSLF not only deals with fuzziness in probability distributions with high satisfaction degrees, but also reflects the risk attitudes of policymakers with the Laplace criterion, which can handle the probability of scenario occurrence under the supposition of no data available. The developed IWRA model with the SSLF method is applied to a practical case in an alpine region of China. The results of adjusted initial water rights, optimal water-right allocation, changed industrial structure, and system benefits under various scenarios associated with risk attitudes and water productivity improvement were obtained and analyzed. It was found that the current initial water-rights allocation scheme based on previous intake water permits is not efficient, and this can be modified by the IWRA model. Based on the strategies of drinking safety and ecological security, the main tradeoff between agricultural and industrial water rights can facilitate optimization of the current initial water-rights allocation. This can assist policymakers in producing an effective plan to promote water productivity and water resource management in a robust and reliable manner.

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Sovereignty Entanglements in Kashmir

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190648664.003.0004 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Daniel Haines

Keyword(s):

River Water ◽

Indus Basin ◽

Water Control ◽

Early Access ◽

Territorial Sovereignty ◽

Flow Through ◽

Water Dispute ◽

Indus Waters Treaty

This chapter argues that Indian and Pakistani constructions of territorial sovereignty on the plains, heavily dependent on their positioning upstream or downstream, differed in the context of Kashmir. Several Indus Basin rivers flow through Kashmir before entering Pakistan. Dominating Kashmir therefore means having early access to river water, and the ability to construct water-control projects such as Pakistan’s Mangla Dam. One reason why India-Pakistan water relationships remain controversial is that the Indus Waters Treaty, representing a very narrow settlement of the water dispute, did not address the geopolitical challenges that Kashmir posed. The chapter therefore shows that competing Indian and Pakistani articulations of the link between water control and territorial sovereignty became even stronger in the context of the Kashmir dispute.

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Challenge and response in the Indus Basin

Water Policy ◽

10.2166/wp.2014.004 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 16 (S1) ◽

pp. 58-86 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Madison Condon ◽

Don Kriens ◽

Anjali Lohani ◽

Erum Sattar

Keyword(s):

River Flow ◽

Environmental Flows ◽

Irrigation System ◽

River System ◽

Indus Basin ◽

Implementation Challenges ◽

History Of ◽

Basin Irrigation ◽

Indus Waters Treaty ◽

Institutional Architecture

The authors examine the complex history of the development of the Indus Basin and the challenges faced by Pakistan during the evolution of the Indus Basin Irrigation System and the country's responses to date. The Indus river system must meet the multiple needs of agriculture, energy and flood security. Pakistan's constitutional structure, in which the federation shares overall responsibility for the operation of the Indus with the provinces, poses unique management and implementation challenges. What are the institutional arrangements Pakistan needs to address the challenges to the Indus Waters Treaty it signed with India in 1960? How is the country going to regulate the use of over-abstraction in the basin with the increased reliance on groundwater to maintain agricultural productivity? What are the institutional mechanisms in place to manage increased river flow variations from glacial melt as a result of climate change and for coping with devastating floods? At the same time, is the country maintaining adequate environmental flows to its delta? Provincial mistrust and a lack of institutional capacity underpins the history of the Indus in Pakistan with the Interprovincial Water Accord 1991 serving as a ray of hope on which to build a new institutional architecture of cooperation.

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The construction of a water rights system in China that is suited to the strictest water resources management system

Water Science & Technology Water Supply ◽

10.2166/ws.2016.130 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

pp. 238-245 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Ming Dou ◽

Yanyan Wang

Keyword(s):

Water Resources ◽

Water Resources Management ◽

Management System ◽

Water Resource Management ◽

Water Rights ◽

Resources Management ◽

Core Components ◽

Current Water ◽

Definition Of ◽

Water Issues

Establishing a modern water rights system (WRS) that is suited to the Strictest Water Resources Management System (SWRM) is an important reform in China's water resources management in terms of addressing current water issues. However, there are still several problems in the construction of a WRS, such as ambiguity in the definition of water rights, weakness in the infrastructure of water rights and imperfect WRS legislation. Moreover, water rights allocation (WRA) and water rights trading (WRT), which are two core components of water rights, still have some problems that remain to be solved. The ‘Three Red Lines’, which make up the core of the SWRM, are expounded upon, and the relationship between the WRS and the SWRM is analyzed. Finally, some appropriate recommendations based on the ‘Three Red Lines’ are provided to perfect the WRS so that it is suitable for the SWRM. In this paper, we conclude that the WRS is a type of water resource management that can effectively solve the current water issues in China. Significant efforts have been made in the construction of the WRS, which has achieved remarkable success in a period of exploration and practice in China. The construction of the WRS supports sustainable social and economic development and results in harmonious relationships between humans and nature.

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Conclusion

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190648664.003.0009 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Daniel Haines

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

World Bank ◽

South Asian ◽

The United States ◽

Indus Basin ◽

The Political ◽

Global Trends ◽

Under Construction ◽

Historical Moment ◽

Indus Waters Treaty

This highlights the book’s two key arguments. First, territoriality and sovereignty were central to water politics in the Indus Basin, with control over water flows necessary to both “internal” and “external” sovereignty. Contradictions and compromises in the India-Pakistan negotiations, and in the water dispute’s entanglement with wider geopolitical issues, showed that South Asian territoriality was not fixed, but under construction. Second, the confluence of sovereignty, territory and water in the Indus dispute represented a particular historical moment in decolonization. Both the trajectories of Indian and Pakistani politics, and broader global trends, produced leaderships that were intent on asserting sovereignty over water resources. The Indus Waters Treaty, on the other hand, depended for its success on the political and financial initiative of the United States, World Bank, and other Cold War geopolitical actors. The chapter finishes with a brief reflection on the state of the Indus treaty today.

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