India-Pakistan Indus water dispute Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), a water-distribution treaty between India and Pakistan to use the water available in the Indus River system under which India received nearly (16%) while Pakistan received nearly (84%), was suspended by India on 23 April 2025 following a
terrorist attack near
Pahalgam in Kashmir Pakistan citing national security concerns. Following the suspension of the treaty, India decided to stop the flow of water on the Chenab River from the
Baglihar Dam as a "short-term punitive action". It also decided to carry out
reservoir flushing in order to boost the reservoir holding capacity of Salal and Baglihar projects. These actions were done off-season, in violation of the treaty provisions, without informing Pakistan. Pakistan has reportedly warned that any attempt by India to disrupt the flow of water from shared rivers could be considered an act of war, and that it could attack India with
nuclear weapons. However, India derives a military advantage from the IWT as its scope is confined to the Indus system of rivers (both eastern and western rivers) basin area located in India and only Ravi and Sutlej basins located in Pakistan per Articles II (1 to 4) and III (2 to 3) and the IWT deals only with the sharing of water available/flowing in the Indian part between Pakistan and India. As per the IWT, Pakistan bombing or destroying dams, barrages, power stations, etc. located in Indian part of the Indus system of rivers is violation of the IWT which can lead to abrogation of IWT.
Indus delta Originally, the delta used to receive almost all of the water from the Indus River, which has an annual flow of approximately , and is accompanied by of silt. Since the 1940s, dams, barrages and irrigation works have been constructed on the river. The Indus Basin Irrigation System is the "largest contiguous irrigation system developed over the past 140 years" anywhere in the world. This has reduced the flow of water and by 2018, the average annual flow of water below the
Kotri barrage was , and annual amount of silt discharged was estimated at . As a result, the
2010 Pakistan floods were considered "good news" for the ecosystem and population of the river delta as they brought much-needed fresh water. Any further utilization of the river basin water is not economically feasible. Vegetation and wildlife of the Indus delta are threatened by the reduced inflow of fresh water, along with extensive deforestation, industrial pollution and
global warming. Damming has also isolated the delta population of Indus River dolphins from those further upstream. Large-scale diversion of the river's water for irrigation has raised far-reaching issues. Sediment clogging from poor maintenance of canals has affected agricultural production and vegetation on numerous occasions. Irrigation itself is increasing soil salinization, reducing crop yields and in some cases rendering farmland useless for cultivation.
Effects of climate change on the river The
Tibetan Plateau contains the world's third-largest store of ice. Qin Dahe, the former head of the China Meteorological Administration, said the recent fast pace of melting and warmer temperatures will be good for agriculture and tourism in the short term, but issued a strong warning: Temperatures are rising four times faster than elsewhere in China, and the Tibetan glaciers are retreating at a higher speed than in any other part of the world... In the short term, this will cause lakes to expand and bring floods and mudflows... In the long run, the glaciers are vital lifelines of the Indus River. Once they vanish, water supplies in Pakistan will be in peril. "There is insufficient data to say what will happen to the Indus," says David Grey, the World Bank's senior water advisor in South Asia. "But we all have very nasty fears that the flows of the Indus could be severely, severely affected by glacier melt as a consequence of
climate change," and reduced by perhaps as much as 50 per cent. "Now what does that mean to a population that lives in a desert [where], without the river, there would be no life? I don't know the answer to that question," he says. "But we need to be concerned about that. Deeply, deeply concerned." U.S. diplomat
Richard Holbrooke said, shortly before he died in 2010, that he believed that falling water levels in the Indus River "could very well precipitate World War III."
Pollution Over the years factories on the banks of the Indus River have increased levels of water pollution in the river and the atmosphere around it. High levels of pollutants in the river have led to the deaths of endangered Indus River dolphin. The
Sindh Environmental Protection Agency has ordered polluting factories around the river to shut down under the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, 1997. Death of the
Indus river dolphin has also been attributed to fishermen using poison to kill fish and scooping them up. As a result, the government banned fishing from
Guddu Barrage to
Sukkur. The Indus is second among a group of ten rivers responsible for about 90% of all the
plastic that reaches the oceans. The
Yangtze is the only river contributing more plastic.
2010 floods Frequently, Indus River is prone to moderate to severe flooding. In July 2010, following abnormally heavy
monsoon rains, the Indus River rose above its banks and started flooding. The rain continued for the next two months, devastating large areas of Pakistan. In
Sindh, the Indus burst its banks near
Sukkur on 8 August, submerging the village of Mor Khan Jatoi. In early August, the heaviest flooding moved southward along the Indus River from severely affected northern regions toward western
Punjab, where at least of cropland was destroyed, and the southern province of Sindh. , over two thousand people had died and over a million homes had been destroyed since the flooding began.
2011 floods The 2011
Sindh floods began during the Pakistani monsoon season in mid-August 2011, resulting from heavy monsoon rains in Sindh, eastern Balochistan, and southern Punjab. The floods caused considerable damage; an estimated 434 civilians were killed, with 5.3 million people and 1,524,773 homes affected. Sindh is a fertile region and often called the "breadbasket" of the country; the damage and toll of the floods on the local agrarian economy was said to be extensive. At least of arable land were inundated. The flooding followed the previous year's floods, which devastated a large part of the country. ==Barrages, bridges, levees and dams==