Rivers have long connected nations even when politics failed to. Yet today, the Kabul River which winds through Afghanistan before joining Pakistan's mighty Indus near Attock has become both a symbol of shared geography and a source of quiet anxiety. As Afghanistan announced its dam construction plans on the Kunar and Kabul rivers, concerns in Pakistan are resurfacing over the absence of a formal water-sharing framework between the two neighbours.

Afghanistan's hydrological system is vast and varied, divided into five main river basins: the Amu Darya, Indus-Kabul, Northern, Harirod-Murghab and Helmand. Of these, the Indus-Kabul basin forms the most critical link between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The two countries share nine rivers in total among which three are flowing into Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and six into Balochistan.

On average, about 23 million acre-feet (MAF) of water flows from Afghanistan into Pakistan each year, with roughly 17.5 MAF coming from the Kabul River alone.........

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