[NEW DELHI, SciDev.Net] A disputed India-Pakistan water treaty should be strengthened to factor in challenges such as climate change or scrapped entirely, say water experts amid heightened tensions between the two countries.

The Indus Water Treaty has governed the sharing of the Indus River for 65 years, with Pakistan and northern India heavily dependent on its waters.

But the bilateral agreement was suspended by India following the killing in April of 26 tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir by militants who allegedly crossed over from Pakistan.

India’s foreign minister S. Jaishankar said the treaty would be put on hold until Pakistan “credibly and irrevocably” stopped supporting cross-border terrorism, leaving experts to speculate on the future of the Indus waters.

Shakil Ahmad Romshoo, vice chancellor of the Islamic University of Science and Technology, Srinagar and expert in hydrology and glaciology, says the suspension of the treaty might not significantly alter Indus water flows in the short-term.

“However, over the long term, spanning a decade or more, the upstream country (India) could develop the capacity to regulate flows more assertively, potentially affecting water availability downstream (in Pakistan) if the present impasse continues,” Romshoo told SciDev.Net.

A fresh treaty involving all basin countries, including China and Afghanistan, “seems unlikely” to Romshoo, given the political tensions.

“A more practical approach would be to strengthen the existing Treaty by addressing common concerns like climate change, groundwater availability, pollution and water variability within its current framework,” he said.

Dan Haines, associate professor at the department of risk and disaster reduction of University College, London, said renegotiation of the treaty is the most likely path to resolving the situation. The other possible options are conditional reinstatement of the existing treaty or scrapping it permanently, he said.

Nine in every ten Pakistanis live within the Indus Basin and major cities like Karachi and Lahore rely on the Indus River and its five tributaries for drinking water. About 80 per cent of the country’s irrigated agriculture depends on its waters.

For more than a decade, India has been pressing for changes to the Treaty to incorporate new engineering techniques, climate change and faster melting of the Himalayan glaciers and snow. Pakistan has brushed off India’s requests, resulting in a breakdown of data exchanges and communication mandated by the treaty.

“It is a horrible treaty,” said Daanish Mustafa, professor in critical geography at King’s College, London.

“It is outdated, and a fresh agreement taking in the views of all stakeholders, including the Kashmiris, is the best way forward.

“It has already enabled the ecocide of the Indus Rivers’ fragile ecology and deprived millions of fisherfolk of their livelihoods.”

The treaty has been overshadowed by the dispute between the neighbours over Kashmir, through which most of the waters flow.

The agreement was signed in 1960 after lengthy negotiations mediated by the World Bank, with the five tributaries divided between India and Pakistan.

The eastern Sutlej, Beas and Ravi rivers were allocated for India’s exclusive use while the waters of the western rivers, Indus, Jhelum and Chenab, were given to Pakistan.

India had limited rights to non-consumptive uses such as navigation, power generation and agriculture, leading to long-running wrangles.

Antagonism and separation “are written into the DNA of the treaty”, says Mustafa.

“Unlike the 1947 partitioning of the land between the two countries, water does not lend itself to partition,” he added, referring to the division of British-ruled Indi, which preceded the treaty.

“The results are there to see in terms of catastrophic floods, environmental degradation in the delta and high rates of malnourishment in Pakistan’s irrigated districts.”

If renegotiated, the treaty could potentially benefit from the 2014 UN Watercourses Convention, which codifies international law on transboundary water resources.

“If India and Pakistan agree to go back to first principles and entirely reimagine how water-sharing works across borders in the Indus Basin, then the UN Water Convention could be a starting point,” said Haines.

However, he added: “I do not think that is very likely because both countries are heavily locked into the existing model of water use in the basin.”

Mustafa said that giving India exclusive rights to the eastern rivers was inconsistent with international law, which may have given some rights to Pakistan as the lower riparian.

“India cannot easily divert the waters of the eastern rivers as this could result in flooding (in India), especially during the monsoons,” he said.

Pakistan has denied involvement in the 22 April killings and described the suspension of the Treaty as an “act of war”.

India retaliated with bombing raids on suspected militant training camps in Pakistan triggering four days of fierce clashes involving frontline fighters, missiles and drones that ended with a ceasefire on 10 May.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Asia & Pacific desk.