INDIA’S unilateral decision to place the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance threatens Pakistan’s water security after six decades of cooperative management. While pursuing legal challenges, Pakistan must also implement transformative water strategies to secure its future amidst climate change and the risk of upstream infrastructural development.

This crisis will intensify in the coming decades as Pakistan’s population doubles by 2050 while available water resources potentially diminish by half. Under these conditions, Pakistan must quadruple its water productivity simply to maintain current levels of water security.

Given these challenges, Pakistan needs to ad­­opt a comprehensive strategy spanning the next 25 years to 2050, coinciding with India’s projected timeline for developing the diversion infrastructure. This strategy should position Pakistan to reduce water insecurity by its centennial anniversary in 2047. The strategy should address both supply and demand dimensions, combining policy reforms and technological innovation with structural institutional transformation. The following six tracks can be followed concurrently.

Maximise water productivity: Agriculture consumes over 90 per cent of our water resources. Pakistan must extract more value from each drop of water by dramatically increasing agricultural water productivity. Following the example of Indian Punjab and Haryana, it should target annual increases of 1-2pc in water productivity for major crops. Compounded over 25 years, this would yield a 28-64pc increase in overall water productivity, enabling us to maintain or increase agricultural output with less water.

Pakistan must quadruple its water productivity to maintain current levels of water security.

This transformation requires........

© Dawn