Pakistan’s Water Apportionment Accord of 1991: 25 Years and Beyond

Abstract

The apportionment of waters of the Indus River System between the provinces of Pakistan is widely hailed as a historic agreement. This agreement (herein referred to as the Accord) was signed into effect in 1991, just over 25 years ago. The Accord lacks a clearly stated objective and hence it is difficult to review the Accord against its objective. This paper presents a detailed thematic review of the Accord and interprets the literature and data sets that have become available over the last 25 years. Although the Accord leaves room for interpretation, which is often biased to a particular perspective, an obvious starting point that has been highlighted in the literature is to improve water accounting in the Indus basin and to clarify and document the Operating Rules. Over the next 25 years, demographic change, socioeconomic change, and climate change in the Indus Basin will place this Accord under increased scrutiny.

Use of bankruptcy methods for resolving interprovincial water conflicts over transboundary river: Case study of Indus River in Pakistan

“…Arable land and water are the principal natural resources of Pakistan, and agriculture significantly contributes to the country's economy. It accounts for almost 19.8% of the country's GDP (Anwar & Bhatti, 2017). Of the 27% of cultivated land in Pakistan, Punjab has the highest proportion (63%), followed by Sindh (18%), and the remainder is equally divided between the prov- The average canal diversions in the post-Tarbela periods have been only 127 km 3 , which is less than the Accord's entitlements of 144.87 km 3 , as shown in Table 1.…”

An Engineering Perspective of Water Sharing Issues in Pakistan

“…Currently, Pakistan has a water-storage capacity of 144 m 3 per capita. Ethiopia, a country with considerably less water resources than Pakistan has almost the same water storage capacity as Pakistan [39][40][41]. Due to this inadequate storage and high variation of freshwater availability, floods and droughts are extensive, affecting a large part of the country and causing significant adverse socioeconomic impacts.…”

“…Along with the conservation of water, drip irrigation also increases the yield for the farmers, especially in the semi-arid regions. In comparison to conventional flood irrigation, drip irrigation has several advantages, such as less soil erosion, increased crop productivity, water savings, and reduced labor [40]. Increase in the yield ranges from 20% to 100% and water savings reach 40% to 70%.…”

“…According to this accord, the allocations were for Punjab 69.03 km 3 /year, Sindh 60.17 km 3 /year, KPK 7.13 km 3 /year, and Baluchistan 4.78 km 3 /year. Future storage and flood water were to be distributed to Punjab and Sindh each 37%, KPK 14%, and Baluchistan 12%, as shown in Table 1 [40,43].…”

Revisiting Telemetry in Pakistan’s Indus Basin Irrigation System

“…The average unaccounted volume for the same period remained 22.474 Gm 3 /year; hence, approximately 13% of Pakistan's annual water resource remains unaccounted-for. During 2014-2015, the unaccounted-for volume reached 36.082 Gm 3 /year, which was more than twice the national reservoir capacity of Pakistan at that time [16]. This inability to account for water results in recriminations and mistrust between the provinces and in the data and information reported by IRSA [4,6].…”