The Indus Basin Of Pakistan

This study assesses the impacts of climate risks and development alternatives on water and agriculture in the Indus basin of Pakistan. It analyzes inter-relationships among the climate, water, and agriculture sectors and provides a systems modeling framework for these purposes.

Daniel Haines uncovers the history of one of the most important factors in relations between these two South Asian powers -- water

This study, Indus basin of Pakistan: the impacts of climate risks on water and agriculture was undertaken at a pivotal time in the region. The weak summer monsoon in 2009 created drought conditions throughout the country. This followed an already tenuous situation for many rural households faced with high fuel and fertilizer costs and the impacts of rising global food prices. Then catastrophic monsoon flooding in 2010 affected over 20 million people, devastating their housing, infrastructure, and crops. Damages from this single flood event were estimated at US dollar 10 billion, half of which were losses in the agriculture sector. Notwithstanding the debate as to whether these observed extremes are evidence of climate change, an investigation is needed regarding the extent to which the country is resilient to these shocks. It is thus timely, if not critical, to focus on climate risks for water, agriculture, and food security in the Indus basin of Pakistan.

This volume calls upon over a dozen Indus observers to imagine a scenario for the Indus basin in which transboundary cooperation over water resources overcomes the insecurity arising from water dependence and scarcity. From diverse perspectives, its essays examine the potential benefits to be gained from revisiting the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, as well as from mounting joint efforts to increase water supply, to combat climate change, to develop hydroelectric power, and to improve water management. The Indus basin is shared by four countries (Afghanistan, China, India, and Pakistan). The basin’s significance stems in part simply from the importance of these countries, three of them among the planet’s most populous states, one of them boasting the world’s second largest economy, and three of them members of the exclusive nuclear weapons club. However, the basin’s significance stems also from the great importance of the Indus waters themselves – due especially to the region’s massive dependence on irrigated agriculture as well as to the menace of climate change and advancing water scarcity. The “Industan” this volume imagines is a definite departure from business as usual responses to the Indus basin’s emerging fresh water crisis. The objective is to kindle serious discussion of the cooperation needed to confront what many water experts believe is developing into one of the planet’s most gravely threatened river basins. It is thus both assessment of the current state of play in regard to water security in the Indus basin and recommendation about where to go from here.

The Indus basin was once an arid pastoral watershed, but by the second half of the twentieth century, it had become one of the world's most heavily irrigated and populated river basins. Launched under British colonial rule in the nineteenth century, this irrigation project spurred political, social, and environmental transformations that continued after the 1947 creation of the new states of India and Pakistan. In this first large-scale environmental history of the region, David Gilmartin focuses on the changes that occurred in the basin as a result of the implementation of the world's largest modern integrated irrigation system. This masterful work of scholarship explores how environmental transformation is tied to the creation of communities and nations, focusing on the intersection of politics, statecraft, and the environment.

The Indus Waters Treaty is considered a key example of India-Pakistan cooperation, but less has been said about its critical influence on state-making in both countries. This work reveals the importance of the Indus Basin river system, and thus control over it, for Indian and Pakistani claims to sovereignty after South Asia's Partition in 1947

Academic Paper from the year 2021 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Geology, Mineralogy, Soil Science, grade: 10, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, language: English, abstract: This paper deals with the sedimentary environment of the Indus River in Pakistan and the question of how anthropogenic activities change its sediments. Indus River is the longest river in the Asian territory, originated from Tibet Mountain northwest of Pakistan. Routed from the northern part of Gilgit and flowing to word plan area passed through different provinces and flow with sedimentary flux connected with many small and large tributaries tectonically the birth of the rive due to collision of Indian and Eurasian plate that are called Indus suture Plains zone (ISPZ). The main geology composed of igneous and metamorphic rock. The river passed in the various climatic zone with different regions mostly climate is subtropics arid and sub arid to subequatorial. The northern area mostly coved by monsoon system variation of seasonality takes place in the month of May to Oct high flow with increase sedimentary flux special in monsoon time. Anthropogenic activities locally and widely in terms of construction of dams water canals for irrigation purposes, mining exploration, and industries and factories all flux flow in different tributaries impacted on physical and chemical behaviors of the sediments. The primary impact of anthropogenic processes is the reworking of weathered soil smectite which is an indicator of chemical weathering and which increases in the offshore record after around 5000 years ago. This material indicates greater transport of stronger chemically weathered material and some of this may be caused by the erosion of old soils broken up by agriculture, although we also see evidence for the incision of the big rivers into the floodplain which is also driving reworking of this type of material so the signal may be a combination of the two. The dramatic change in shape and size of the sediments by colliding each other during the high charge river.