Development Challenges in Indus Basin

Indus Basin Irrigated Areas

The Challenge Can the resilience of the Indus Basin Irrigation System be assured for generations to come?

Resilience Challenged Water is inadequate to meet a cropping intensity between 150%- 200%, in 16 million ha. Secondary salinization is estimated approximately 27% mostly in Sindh province. Groundwater levels are falling steadily in Punjab. The Indus River and its tributaries receive effluent from all urbanized centers causing the quality of water unacceptable, especially in low flow seasons. Extreme floods and droughts are now more common affecting the livelihood of the most vulnerable too frequently. Rapid population growth, from 175 million people in 2010 to an estimated 236 million by 2030 and 280 million by 2050

Development Challenges 1.How can the irrigation sector reform process extended and improved, gender empowered to ensure equitable irrigation delivery? 2.How can we transform the flood water into opportunity rather than disaster? 3.How can governance enhance the productivity of land, water and eco-system services? 4.What are the appropriate interventions to increase productivity of salinized and waterlogged lands? 5.How do we ensure that water and land policy formulation and implementation at various levels is coherent and consistent with the country’s overall development strategy? 6.How do we arrest groundwater level decline and ensure groundwater withdrawals do not exceed resilience of the aquifers?

Why WLE? In Pakistan, long-term partnerships exist, legal systems already exist, successes around the world, history in the country, some baseline data, knowledge that current system is inefficient WLE has international exposure - WLE has a multidisciplinary research group to address issues Deep experience with developing, implementing and executing water, agriculture, energy, agent-based, trade and economy-wide models The research questions cross-cuts all of WLE’s 5 SRPs (irrigated agriculture, rain-fed agriculture, resource use and recovery, basins, and information systems). Fits into WLE’s framework; and WLE’s work in 7 different basins offers a special opportunity for shared-learning from other regions. WLE Experience and Case Studies: Studies and programs can be replicated with changes to adapt to local characteristics

Who will join hands? ARO: MIT, USA Donors: USAID Federal Agencies: FFC, WAPDA, IRSA, NDMAs, PDMAs, WASA Irrigation & Drainage Authorities: Punjab, Sindh and KPk Irrigation Departments: Punjab, Sindh and KPk NARES: NARC/PARC, PCRWR, PIDE, SDPI, Ayub research institute, Sindh Agriculture Research Institute, SUPARCO Private Sector: NesPak, Salient Solutions (Australia) Universities: Several WLE Partners: ICARDA, IFPRI, IWMI

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