cover image: Telescoping Indus Waters Treaty through the Lens of Climate Change

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Telescoping Indus Waters Treaty through the Lens of Climate Change

9 Jun 2021

In the face of water variability, incorporating mechanisms to bring flexibility and introducing clauses and provisions to deal with the problems related to water quantity and quality impacted by the climate change is the way to retain stability in a treaty. [...] By this time, the development of irrigation systems in sub-continent particularly in the province of Punjab, the food basket of sub-continent, had already attained a 7 Telescoping Indus Waters Treaty through the Lens of Climate Change natural shape of irrigating arable land with the help of head works along the flow line of rivers like Ravi, Beas and Sutlej(Jain, Agarwal et al. [...] This project will 16 Telescoping Indus Waters Treaty through the Lens of Climate Change increase the catchment area of River Jhelum and deprive long stretch of River Neelum of water causing damage and harm to water quantity, water quality and ecological system downstream which is a serious violation of Article IV(3),c and specially paragraph (5) and Article VII(1)(b) of the IWT. [...] Although the technical, legal and administrative arrangement of the treaty is keeping it functional and buoyant yet its inadequacies and lackings do create conflictual situations between India and Pakistan when the internal mechanisms of IWT fail to resolve the issues and the doors of international mediators are knocked for the solution. [...] Some of the important factors to be considered include geography and hydrology of the basin, climate affecting the utilization of water, past water utilization, the economic and social needs of each dependent state, dependent population, comparative cost of meeting economic and social needs of dependent population through alternate means and the availability of other resources, avoidance of unnece.

Authors

Fiaz Hussain Shah

Pages
48
Published in
Germany