A fruit farmer at Murree in Pakistan's Himalayan foothills harvests stream water in 3,000 litre tanks as a hedge against declining snowfall and rainfall over the last two years. Manipadma Jena By Manipadma Jena
12 Apr 2010 15:58:00 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AlertNet) – A 1960 trans-boundary water sharing agreement between India and Pakistan has stood the test of two wars and various periods of unease. Climate change, however, may prove the toughest test of the Indus River deal, observers say. … Pakistan’s meteorological department has already recorded a 10 to15 percent decrease in winter and summer rainfall in the country’s coastal belt and arid plains, with a temperature rise of 0.6 to 1.0 degree Celsius over historical levels, officials said. Per capita water availability in Pakistan has dropped in last 50 years from 5,600 cubic metres to 1,038 cubic meters today. By 2025 it is predicted to be 809 cubic meters, according to the Pakistan government’s Water and Power Development Authority. Humid areas of Pakistan, meanwhile, have seen an 18 to 32 percent increase in monsoon rainfall. In India and Pakistan, 70 percent of rain falls during monsoon periods, which cover four months of the year. In Pakistan’s western Himalayan foothills, where farmers rely on glacial melt from the Karakoram range and year-round rainfall, both water sources are now reducing. Fruit farmers in the area, such as 65-year-old Muhamud Riyaz, have already responded by harvesting summer stream water into 3,000 litre gravity-fed storage tanks. “When I was a boy, summer came but mounds of snow at the foot of thick foliage trees would sit there, melting slowly, keeping the soil moist until the summer rains came. Since the last two years, the snow is just a thin layer and it rains only in monsoons,” Riyaz said. In other areas, flooding is the problem. Pakistan records floods almost every year now, and in India the area affecting by flooding more than doubled between 1953 and 2003, and currently represent about 11 percent of its geographic area, according to the World Bank. Even in areas that regularly flood, “high frequency, low intensity flood events have now turned into high intensity, high frequency floods,” said Daanish Mustafa, a water specialist and geography professor at London’s Kings College. River siltation is contributing to the problem, he said. …

Rivers a source of rising tension between Pakistan and India