Mutual Vulnerability in the Indus Basin: Integrated Water Security as Conflict Transformation Strategy RCSS Policy Studies 55

Published in association with the South Asian regional think tank Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, this timely volume shows that recognizing mutual environmental vulnerabilities in a shared river basin can lead to cooperative security, which allows for change in existing and emerging water conflicts. The book argues that as new environmental and political challenges have surfaced in the Indus Basin in the wake of climate changes, there is a greater need for development-based peace and security between India and Pakistan. It provides a brief history of Indo-Pakistan conflicts over Indus Basin water sharing and purports that ample scope exists for an integrated water-management system in the region within the framework of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty between the two nations. Research suggests that climate-induced changes on Himalayan glaciers will seriously affect regional water flows, which will result in a number of hydropolitical hurdles in the Indus Basin. Mutual Vulnerability in the Indus Basin contends that rapid climate change trends in the basin are thus indicative of potential future water conflicts between the historically antagonistic countries, which can only be prevented by adopting an integrated water-management policy.

Asma Yaqoob is a research analyst at the Institute of Regional Studies in Islamabad, Pakistan, who has contributed a number of research articles on water issues in South Asia. She is currently working on “Dam-Building in the Himalayas—Lessons from China and India: Options for Pakistan.”