ISLAMABAD, Apr 13, 2010 (IPS) - Climate change and the probability that a current water shortage would worsen may make constantly bickering neighbours, India and Pakistan, take a closer look at a 50-year-old treaty under which they share rivers originating from the Himalayas.

And while the latest official annual meeting regarding the treaty ended inconclusively in Lahore in March, experts say the two countries would do well to keep talking about the water resources they share.

Danish Mustafa, a water specialist and geography professor at King’s College in London, even says that a review of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) may "be a conduit for encouraging greater trust and interaction in other spheres".

After all, since gaining independence from Britain 60 years ago, India and Pakistan have never seemed to run out of things to quarrel over.

At a Mar. 28-30 journalists’ conference here in the Pakistani capital that focused on regional tensions from water resources, the need for cross- border dialogue to prevent water from becoming a flashpoint of conflict was also discussed.

Indeed, such concerns have once more brought to fore the IWT, which was brokered in 1960 by the World Bank that also acted as guarantor. Under the agreement, India would take the three eastern rivers – Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas – while Pakistan would have the western rivers – Jhelum, Chenab, and Sindh.

But the treaty also gives India, which is the upper riparian country, certain rights over the western rivers including domestic use, navigation, limited agriculture and generation of hydropower. Experts say, though, that it prohibits construction aimed at facilitating storage or diversion of the river by India.

At the media conference organised by LEAD Pakistan, a non-profit group working for environment and development, experts stressed that the worsening water shortage in Pakistan highlights the need for India and Pakistan to revisit the Indus water agreement.

"Pakistan has virtually reached the limits of surface water diversion and groundwater abstraction after a period of rapid expansion following Mangla and Tarbela dams, and installation of a million tube-wells and turbines," Syed Ayub Qutub, an Islamabad-based specialist on water management, said in an interview.

Water availability in Pakistan has plummeted from about 5,000 cubic metres per capita in the early 1950s to less than 1,500 per capita today.

"Pakistan is a largely arid or semi-arid country with less than seven percent of its land area receiving more than 500 millimetres of rain," he added. "The country relies on irrigation for more than 90 percent of its food and fibre production."

Daniyal Hashmi, a civil engineer in Pakistan’s Water and Power Development Authority, noted that when the IWT was negotiated, the three western rivers had sufficient water to support the country’s irrigated agriculture. The cropping intensity then was about 70 percent, he told IPS.

"The Indus irrigation system was designed for this cropping intensity," he explained. "But over the years, cropping intensity increased to about 170 percent."

"At that time the phenomenon of climate change was not known," Hashmi added. "Similarly, minimum flows required for maintaining the ecology of the rivers was also not an issue."

Qutub confirmed this even as he said that the treaty’s flaws included its failure to conform to major international water laws and conventions. He concurred with others at the conference who said that India’s apparent inability to share with Pakistan accurate data about projects in the IWT rivers was a sore point in the arrangement.

"India failed to share data, developed new hydroelectric projects on the western rivers, constructing the Wullar Barrage and storage works on the Jhelum Main without informing Pakistan, and creating live storage capacities behind the barrage far in excess of the treaty allowance," said Qutub.

But he asked as well: "Why didn’t Pakistan invoke the provisions of IWT for more than two decades?"

Qutub says that Pakistan knew as early as 1984 that India was not complying with some of its obligations under the Indus treaty. "The record may reveal negligence by the national leadership, both political and military, as well as bureaucratic buckpassing," he said.

"Pakistan wastes twice the amount of water each year in watercourses than could be stored at Tarbela dam (on the Indus) when it was built (in 1974)," Qutub pointed out. "We grow sugarcane and low-value rice, called Irri, with our precious water resources, when we could import these items at lower cost to the consumers. Head-end farmers steal much of the water of their downstream neighbours."

"First," said Qutub, "we should correct these mistakes."

He also disagreed with those who saw dark war clouds looming over Pakistan and India because of water. "Nations generally cooperate, not go to war, over water."

Water specialist Mustafa added: "There is no harm in reviewing the treaty in the light of climate change, but it needs creative thinking." The prospect of this happening is rather slim, Mustafa himself conceded. But on the off-chance that the treaty would be reviewed, he suggested that the two sides look into the base flow for the three eastern rivers.

"In a climate-change future, those base flows are going to be all the more critical for the health of the ecological systems in downstream Pakistan," said Mustafa. "In return, Pakistan could allow equivalent of base flows in eastern rivers from its three western rivers for India to use." (END)