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The Indus River System is a major source of life in Pakistan. A vast array of Pakistan's agricultural and domestic consumption needs are critically dependent on the Indus River System. The Indus River contributes towards 25% of the country's gross domestic product, providing water for almost 90% of the food production in Pakistan. Linked to the water security issues, Pakistan is potentially at risk of facing a severe food shortage in the near future. The World Bank report of 2020–2021 estimates that the water shortage will increase to 32% by 2025, which will result in a food shortage of almost 70 million tons. Water shortage could also result in confrontation between the provinces as river sharing has always been a source of problem for Pakistan. According to recent estimates, siltation and climate change will reduce the water storage capacity by 2025 to almost 30%. As for the per capita water storage capacity in Pakistan, it is about 150 m3, which is quite meagre in comparison with that in other countries. Irrigated agriculture will soon be adversely affected due to the reduced surface water supplies and the consequent increase in groundwater abstraction. To make matters worse, over the past decades, a great deal of distrust has developed among the provinces of Pakistan regarding the water distribution issue, and the successive federal governments have failed to formulate a cohesive inter-provincial National Water Policy. Along with the shortages and increasing demand for water, administrative corruption also plagues the water sector and is quite common. The beneficiaries of this water reallocation system are not only the rural elite, for example the large and politically influential landlords, but also the small and medium capitalist farmers. If not properly addressed, these complications of decreasing water resources could result in serious political and economic hostility among the provinces. If it wants to harness its potential to increase storage capacity, Pakistan must improve its water-use efficiency and manage its groundwater and surface water resources in a sustainable way. Strengthening the institutions and removing mistrust among the provinces are the key elements for maintaining a sustainable irrigated agriculture in the Indus Basin. HIGHLIGHTS Indus River, a major source of life in Pakistan.; River sharing has always been a source of problem and confrontation between the provinces of Pakistan.; The paper highlights various problems in Pakistan's Indus Basin.; It also gives several recommendations for improving sustainability in Pakistan's Indus Basin.

The question of how to govern and manage transboundary river basin for competing and often conflicting demands due to limited supplies continues to be an issue of concern, conflict, and cooperation. A key novelty of this paper is the use of the Water Diplomacy Framework (WDF) to address supply-demand mismatch using the notion of collaborative problem-solving and joint fact-finding. It builds on innovative applications of game-theoretic approaches and uses equity and sustainability as guiding principles to address the supply-demand mismatch. Five different bankruptcy methods (net benefit ranges between US$17,462M to US$18,201M) and the Nash Bargaining Solution (net benefit ranges between US$18,132M to US$19,216M) are used to resolve supply-demand mismatch in the Indus basin among four provinces within Pakistan. The maximum total benefit generated from the Nash Bargaining Solution is 5.5% higher compared to the best bankruptcy method. Moving from the non-cooperative and rule-based bankruptcy methods to the Nash Bargaining Solutions provided increased benefit for all stakeholders. Reallocation of these increased benefits among the four provinces is done by applying the Nash Bargaining Solutions for homogenous and heterogeneous weights. These findings suggest that aspects of WDF – cooperative problem-solving approaches involving joint fact-finding and exploring different options – has the potential to simultaneously resolve supply-demand mismatch and generate more benefits for all stakeholders.

Addressing water access, allocation, and use becomes a complex problem when it crosses multiple boundaries: political, jurisdictional, and societal, as well as ecological, biogeochemical, and physical. This paper focuses on transboundary water management (TWM) problems among the riparians with conflicting needs and competing demands. The complexity of TWM problems arises because of interdependencies among variables, processes, actors, and institutions operating at various scales. For such situations, the traditional notion of necessary and sufficient causal conditions is not adequate to resolve TWM problems. In essence, the resolution of many TWM issues becomes contingent upon the changes that occur within the context of the problem. A key for initiating and sustaining the resolution of complex TWM issues appears to be a set of enabling conditions, not any easily identifiable and replicable causal conditions or mechanisms. Thus, before analyzing and addressing contingent and situational factors important for any TWM issues, this paper argues for a reframing of these issues and examining the role and relevance of three enabling conditions. Using the inter-provincial water conflicts for the Indus basin within Pakistan as an illustrative case, it shows why over 30 years of dialog and discourse could not create any formal water allocation agreement. Then, it discusses how the Water Apportionment Accord of 1991 created the enabling conditions to address inter-provincial water conflicts within Pakistan in an adaptive way.