Indus is a river system that sustains communities in both countries India and Pakistan, which have extensively dammed the Indus River for irrigation of their crops and hydro-electricity systems. The river tributaries are Jhelum and Chenab rivers, which primarily flow into Pakistan while other branches—the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej—irrigate northern India. Conflict in the basin started in 1947 when India stopped water flowing through its canals to Pakistan, forcing the later to approach international agencies for help. Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) was signed by both countries in 1960, giving exclusive rights over the three western rivers of the Indus river system (Jhelum, Chenab and Indus) to Pakistan, and over the three eastern rivers (Sutlej, Ravi and Beas) to India. Competing water demands and inadequate water availability for irrigation and other uses stress regional economy which leads to failing of legal and governance institutions. Water dispute in Indus River Basin (IRB) arose due to poor governance and lack of proper institutions to manage water between two stakeholders, which stressed the amount of water available in the basin. Changing climate worldwide and its effect on mountain snow-caps and glaciers have been exerting new set of challenges to the governance and institutions managing the waters of IRB. Based on the review of secondary literature and scenario analysis, this article exposes the inherent uncertainties and suggests governance solutions.

1. Workshop on Governing Critical Uncertainties:
Climate Change and Decision-Making in
Transboundary River Basins
21‐ 23 January 2013, Chiang Mai, Thailand
www.earthsystemgovernance.org

2. New Challenges of Transboundary Water Conflicts and
Climate Change for Governance of Indus River Basin

3. Introduction
• Indus is a river system that sustains 200 million
people in India and Pakistan
• Both India and Pakistan have extensively
dammed the Indus River
• With competing demands of water both sides,
the conflicts sustain since 1947, year of partition
• Indus Water Treaty (IWT) agreed in 1960
• Transboundary water conflicts on climax now
• Climate change is supposed to add to conflicts
• New challenges to governance and institutions
• Need to reform the international legislation and
governance to cope with uncertainties

4. Indus River Basin System
• Sanskrit – Sindhu
• Old Persian – Hindu
• Ancient Greek - Ἰ νδός
• Old Iranian - Indós
• Urdu - Daryā-e Sindh
• Hindi - Sindhu Nadī
• Sindhi - Sindhu
• Punjabi - Sindh
• Gujarati - Sindhu
• Tibetan - Sênggê Zangbo (Lion River)
• Pashto - Abāsin (Father of Rivers)
• Turkish – Nilab
• Arabic - Naḥ ar al-Sind
• Persian - Rūd-e Sind
• Latin – Indus

5. Indus River Basin System
Length: 3,200 km (2,000 mi)
Basin: 1,165,000 km2 (450,000 mi2)
Discharge: 6,600 m3/s (230,000 ft3/s)
Location Coordinates: India and
Pakistan ~32046'N and 74057'E
Population: 175 million (72% in
Pakistan; 28% in India)
Rainfall: 1000-1400 mm
Temperature: 80oC (Winter) - 48oC
(Summer)
Economic Factor: Agricultural
production
Area: 450,000 square miles
Top uses of water: Irrigation, water
supply, hydropower generation Left
Tributaries: Zanskar River, Chenab
River, Sutlej River, Sohan River
Right Tributaries: Shyok River, Gilgit
River, Kabul River, Kurram

6. Indus River Basin System
• 21st largest river in the world in terms of annual flow
• 60% of Indus basin lies in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied
Kashmir (POK), 10% in Tibet, 25% in India and India-
Administered Kashmir, and 7% in Afghanistan
• Indus system is largely fed by the snows and glaciers of
the Himalayas, Karakoram and the Hindu Kush ranges
• 80% of water for Upper Indus Rivers comes from Himalayan
glaciers
• 25 amphibian species and 147 fish species of which 22 are
endemic
• Indus is the most important supplier of water resources to
the Punjab and Sindh plains

9. Competing Water Demands
& Transboundary Conflicts
• Water disputes between Punjab and Sind provinces during
British India
• Conflict in the basin started in 1947 when India stopped water
flowing through its canals to Pakistan
• Dispute over Salal dam was settled in 1978
• Controversy on the Wullar Barrage/ Tulbul Navigation project
and Kishanganga hydroelectric dams remains unsettled.
• Baglihar dam created severe conflicts, but the issue was
settled by recourse to Neutral Expert
• Recent Conflicts created around: 57-metre high Nimoo-Bazgo
dam in Leh (India); 42-metre high Chuttak dam on Suru river
(India-Kashmir); Tulbul Navigation Project in Indian-Kashmir

10. Some Major Dams on India’s Part of Indus River Basin

11. Transboundary Governance System
• Inter-Dominion Accord of May 4, 1948: required India to
release sufficient waters to Pakistani regions
• Pakistan wanted to take the matter to the International Court
of Justice but India refused
• In 1951, David E. Lilienthal, former chairman of Tennessee
Valley Authority, visited India and Pakistan.
• Lilienthal wrote an article with suggestions that Indus Basin
be treated, exploited, and developed as a single unit

12. Transboundary Governance System
• World Bank mediated from 1952 onwards, and Indus Waters
Treaty (IWT) was signed in September 1960
• IWT conferred rights over 3 western rivers of Indus river
system (Jhelum, Chenab and Indus) to Pakistan, and over 3
eastern rivers (Sutlej, Ravi and Beas) to India

13. Chronology of Indus Water Treaty
(adapted from Jutla and Dewayne, 2009)
Transboundary Governance System

14. Industrialization and its
Impacts on Water Resources
Causes
• Deforestation
• Industrialization on banks
• Urbanization
Effects
• Low agricultural production
• Westward course shifting
• sediment clogging
• Salt deposits
• Water pollution of rivers

16. Industrialization and its Impacts on
Water Resources
Construction of Dams
• Both parties constructing on
the tributary rivers & streams
• Example: 401 projects on 5
river basins i.e. Satluj, Beas,
Ravi, Chenab & Yamuna
• Himalayas viewed as
storehouse of hydro power
• Many projects made the
tributaries and rivers non-
functional destroying the
water regimes and changing
local climate profiles

17. Industrialization and its Impacts on
Water Resources
Construction of Dams
• Run of the river schemes
are storage based diversion
schemes
• Water is diverted through
head race tunnel (HRT)
• Kilometers of river stretch
dried
• 80% of 35 projects in
North-Western Himalayas
have reservoirs or storage
component

18. Industrialization and its Impacts on
Water Resources
Construction of Dams
• Reservoirs induce anaerobic decomposition of biomass
thereby producing methane gas
• Methane stays longer in the environment and traps heat
• Methane has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of 25 times
more than CO2.
• Accumulation of organic matter in the rivers risen the per
unit emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs)

19. Climate Change and its Impacts on
Water Resources
Changing Environments:
• Both countries have largely modified environments, where
dam and power projects have been built
• Submergence zones have significantly altered the local
geography and meteorology
• Urbanization across the mountains is also impacting local
climate regimes
• IRB is faced with major challenges due to population
growth, rapid urbanization and industrialization,
environmental degradation, unregulated utilization of the
resources, inefficient water use and poverty

20. Climate Change and its Impacts on
Water Resources
Changing Environments:
• Himalayan glacial system contains 116,180 km2 of ice.
• Himalayan glaciers provide the Indus with 70-80% of its
water
• IRB collectively provides water for about 1.3 billion people
• Climate change affects mountain snow-caps and glaciers
• Glacial vulnerability increases manifold
• Faster melting and depleting ice stock affecting the flow in
lean periods

21. Climate Change and its Impacts on
Water Resources
Changing Environments:
• Conflicting behaviour of glaciers, such as retreating,
advancing, and even surging
• Study of MoEF, India (May 2011) indicates almost 75% of
the glaciers have shown a retreat
• Changes in glaciers pose big challenge for hydrogeology
and water regimes
• Effects on hydropower generation and agricultural
production and consequently altering people’s livelihoods

22. Climate Change and its Impacts on
Water Resources
Changing Environments:
• Climate change will affect the temporal and spatial
availability of water resources
• The effects in the Indus basin though remain uncertain
• Glaciers in Karakoram region are mostly stagnating
• Glaciers in the Western, Central & Eastern Himalaya are
retreating.
• It stresses the uncertainty in future water availability for
the Indus basin

23. Climate Change and its Impacts on
Water Resources
Changing Environments:
• Snowfall decreasing in all mountain ranges
• Decrease in total seasonal snowfall of 280 cm over entire
Western Himalayas between 1988-89 and 2006-07
• Total rainfall may
increase in some areas
and decrease in others
• Water stress &
droughts or floods
• Decreasing trend of
annual rainfall (-29.7 to
-2.1 cm/100 years)
observed at Shimla
• Monsoon rainfall in all
northern mountainous
India has declined by
10% between 1844 and Declining trend of snowfall in North-Western
2006. Himalayas (adapted from Ray et al., 2011)

24. New Challenges to Governance System
• Climate change will
exacerbate the problems
of irregular and low flow in
Indus and its tributaries.
• Changing climates would
exert new set of
challenges to governance
and institutions managing
the waters of IRB.
• New troubles have started
raising challenges to the
IWT and transboundary
governance institutions
• Hence, fashioning an
adaptive governance
structure responsive to
contingencies of time and
situation requires changes
in conventional modes of
governance

25. New Challenges to Governance System
• Need for enhanced
cooperation in
irrigation, electricity
generation, flood
protection, and
ecosystem
maintenance
• Revisiting the IWT
terms
• Improving the scope
for effective
international
cooperation and
integrated resource
management

26. New Challenges to Governance System
• Article.VII of IWT requires
to share hydrological data,
but neither India nor
Pakistan publish
information on Indus flows
• It made difficult for public
interest groups, academic
analysts, stakeholders, or
even decision-makers in
other policy departments
in either country to
participate constructively
or contribute to policy
formation.
• Article.VII expressly
envisages the two states
could undertake
cooperative engineering
works, a possibility they
have never pursued.

27. Thank
you
We
request
to pray