Research Article
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Scale Issues in Design and Implementation of the Water Apportionment Accord in the Indus Basin

Year 2023, Volume: 1 Issue: 6, 57 - 77, 24.01.2023

Abstract

The 1991 Water Apportionment Accord (WAA) is an extraordinary example of subnational water allocation albeit not a perfect one. It established access and allocation of waters from the Indus River among the four provinces of Pakistan through finding political solutions to inter-provincial conflicts. However, the scale of its implementation remains subnational, creating several issues for the efficacy of the WAA. Using the analytical frame of scale–descale–rescale (SDR), this paper examines WAA by descaling its design and implementation at four scales: national, subnational, river basin and sub-river basin. Certain scale-driven interactions emerge between the provinces and the federal government that contribute to technical and institutional issues which, when seen from a scale lens, point to key challenges why WAA objectives are not fully achieved. A rescaling to the Indus River Basin shows an interconnected pattern of politics of scales leading to persisting conflicts that hinder planning and participation.

Supporting Institution

Tufts University

Project Number

Water Diplomacy Program

Thanks

This research is partially supported by a grant from the US National Science Foundation (Water Diplomacy IGERT NSF 0966093). The author is grateful for earlier review and comments by colleagues in the Water Diplomacy group.

References

  • Adeel, Z., & Wirsing, R. G. (Eds.). (2017). Imagining Industan. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32845-4 Aijaz, A., & Akhter, M. (2020). From building dams to fetching water: Scales of politicization in the indus basin. Water, 12(5), 1351. https://doi.org/10.3390/w12051351
  • Akhter, M. (2017). The political ecology of the water scarcity/security nexus in the indus basin: Decentering per capita water supply. In Z. Adeel & R. G. Wirsing (Eds.), Imagining Industan (pp. 21–33). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32845-4_2
  • Anwar, A. A., & Bhatti, M. T. (2018). Pakistan’s Water Apportionment Accord of 1991: 25 years and beyond. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 144(1), 05017015. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0000831
  • Archer, D. R., Forsythe, N., Fowler, H. J., & Shah, S. M. (2010). Sustainability of water resources management in the Indus Basin under changing climatic and socio economic conditions. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 14(8), 1669–1680. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-14-1669-2010
  • Arfan, M., Ansari, K., Ullah, A., Hassan, D., Siyal, A., & Jia, S. (2020). Agenda setting in water and IWRM: Discourse analysis of water policy debate in pakistan. Water, 12(6), 1656. https://doi.org/10.3390/w12061656
  • Asian Development Bank (ADB). (2013). Asian Water Development Outlook 2013: Measuring Water Security in Asia and the Pacific. Asia Pacific Water Forum, Asian Development Bank, Philippines. https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/30190/asian-water-development-outlook-2013.pdf.
  • Bhatti, M. T., Anwar, A. A., & Shah, M. A. A. (2019). Revisiting telemetry in pakistan’s indus basin irrigation system. Water, 11(11), 2315. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11112315
  • Briscoe, J., & Qamar, U. (2006). Pakistan’s water economy: Running dry. Oxford University Press; The World Bank.
  • Cash, D. W., Adger, W. N., Berkes, F., Garden, P., Lebel, L., Olsson, P., Pritchard, L., & Young, O. (2006). Scale and cross-scale dynamics: Governance and information in a multilevel world. Ecology and Society, 11(2), art8. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-01759-110208
  • Cilliers, P., Biggs, H. C., Blignaut, S., Choles, A. G., Hofmeyr, J.-H. S., Jewitt, G. P. W., & Roux, D. J. (2013). Complexity, modeling, and natural resource management. Ecology and Society, 18(3), art1. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05382-180301
  • Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FODP). (2012). A productive and water secure Pakistan. The Report of the Water Sector Task Force of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FODP). http://mowr.gov.pk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/FoDP-WSTF-Report-Final-09-29-12.pdf.
  • Garrick, D., Anderson, G., Connell, D., & Pittock, J. (2014). Federal rivers. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781781955055
  • Groenfeldt, D., & Schmidt, J. J. (2013). Ethics and water governance. Ecology and Society, 18(1), art14. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04629-180114
  • Gupta, J. (2008). Global change: Analysing scale and scaling in environmental governance. Institutions and Environmental Change: Principal Findings, Applications, and Research Frontiers, 225–258. https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/global-change-analysing-scale-and-scaling-in-environmental-govern
  • Gupta, J., & Pahl-Wostl, C. (2013). Global water governance in the context of global and multilevel governance: Its need, form, and challenges. Ecology and Society, 18(4), art53. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05952-180453
  • Hayat, S. (2020). Inclusive development and multilevel transboundary water governance—The Kabul River. https://cdm21063.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/phd1/id/53983
  • Janjua, S., Hassan, I., & Islam, S. (2020). Role and relevance of three enabling conditions to resolve inter-provincial water conflicts in the Indus basin within Pakistan. Water Policy, 22(5), 811–824. https://doi.org/10.2166/wp.2020.230
  • Kramer, D. B., Hartter, J., Boag, A. E., Jain, M., Stevens, K., Nicholas, K. A., McConnell, W. J., & Liu, J. (2017). Top 40 questions in coupled human and natural systems (Chans) research. Ecology and Society, 22(2), art44. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09429-220244
  • Lebel, L., Garden, P., & Imamura, M. (2005). The politics of scale, position, and place in the governance of water resources in the Mekong region. Ecology and Society, 10(2), art18. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-01543-100218
  • Liu, J., Dietz, T., Carpenter, S. R., Alberti, M., Folke, C., Moran, E., Pell, A. N., Deadman, P., Kratz, T., Lubchenco, J., Ostrom, E., Ouyang, Z., Provencher, W., Redman, C. L., Schneider, S. H., & Taylor, W. W. (2007). Complexity of coupled human and natural systems. Science, 317(5844), 1513–1516. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1144004
  • Lutz, A. F., Immerzeel, W. W., Gobiet, A., Pellicciotti, F., & Bierkens, M. F. P. (2013). Comparison of climate change signals in CMIP3 and CMIP5 multi-model ensembles and implications for Central Asian glaciers. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 17(9), 3661–3677. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-17-3661-2013
  • Moss, T., & Newig, J. (2010). Multilevel water governance and problems of scale: Setting the stage for a broader debate. Environmental Management, 46(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-010-9531-1
  • Mustafa, D. (2010). Hydropolitics in Pakistan's Indus Basin. Washington DC: US Institute of Peace. https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/SR261%20-%20Hydropolitics_in_Pakistan%27s%20_Indus_Basin.pdf.
  • Norman, E. S., Bakker, K., & Cook, C. (2012). Introduction to the themed section: Water governance and the politics of scale. Water Alternatives, 5(1).
  • Norman, E. S., & Bakker, K. (2015). Do good fences make good neighbours? Canada–United States transboundary water governance, the Boundary Waters Treaty, and twenty-first-century challenges. Water International, 40(1), 199–213. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2014.978973
  • Ostrom, E. (1999). Institutional rational choice: An assessment of the institutional analysis and development framework. In Theories of the Policy Process, Theoretical lenses on public policy (pp. 35–72). Westview Press.
  • Padt, F., Opdam, P., Polman, N., & Termeer, C. (Eds.). (2014). Scale-sensitive governance of the environment. Wiley Blackwell.
  • Pahl-Wostl, C. (2008). Requirements for adaptive water management. In C. Pahl-Wostl, P. Kabat, & J. Möltgen (Eds.), Adaptive and Integrated Water Management (pp. 1–22). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75941-6_1
  • Rajbhandari, R., Shrestha, A. B., Kulkarni, A., Patwardhan, S. K., & Bajracharya, S. R. (2015). Projected changes in climate over the Indus river basin using a high resolution regional climate model (Precis). Climate Dynamics, 44(1–2), 339–357. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2183-8
  • Sattar, E., Robison, J., & McCool, D. (2018). Evolution of water institutions in the indus river basin: Reflections from the law of the colorado river. University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, 51(4), 715–775. https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjlr/vol51/iss4/3
  • Syed, T., & Choudhury, E. (2018). Scale interactions in transboundary water governance of Indus river. International Journal of Water Governance, Volume 6, 64–84. https://doi.org/10.7564/18-IJWG135
  • Syed, T., Choudhury, E., & Islam, S. (2020). An assessment of scale-sensitivity in policy design and implementation of the EU water framework directive within the context of the Danube basin. Water Alternatives, 13(3), 634–658. https://search.proquest.com/docview/2451133006/abstract/2040F6B248614255PQ/1?accountid=27683
  • Termeer, C., & Dewulf, A. (2014). Scale-sensitivity as a governance capability: Observing, acting and enabling. In F. Padt, P. Opdam, N. Polman, & C. Termeer (Eds.), Scale-sensitive Governance of the Environment (pp. 38–55). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118567135.ch3
  • United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2017). The Vulnerability of Pakistan’s Water Sector to the Impacts of Climate Change: Identification of Gaps and Recommendations for Action. Islamabad, Pakistan: UNDP. http://www.pk.undp.org/content/dam/pakistan/docs/Environment%20&%20Climate%20Change /Report.pdf.
  • Wester, P., Mishra, A., Mukherji, A., & Shrestha, A. B. (Eds.). (2019). The Hindu Kush Himalaya assessment: Mountains, climate change, sustainability and people. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92288-1
  • Yang, Y.-C. E., Brown, C., Yu, W., Wescoat, J., & Ringler, C. (2014). Water governance and adaptation to climate change in the Indus River Basin. Journal of Hydrology, 519, 2527–2537. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.08.055
  • Young, O., Lambin, E., Alcock, F., Haberl, H., Karlsson, S., McConnell, W., Myint, T., Pahl-Wostl, C., Polsky, C., Ramakrishnan, P. S., Schroeder, H., Scouvart, M., & Verburg, P. (2006). A portfolio approach to analyzing complex human-environment interactions: Institutions and land change. Ecology and Society, 11(2). https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-01799-110231
  • Young, O. R. (2002). The institutional dimensions of environmental change: Fit, interplay, and scale. MIT Press.
  • Young, W. J., Anwar, A., Bhatti, T., Borgomeo, E., Davies, S., Garthwaite III, W. R., Gilmont, E. M., Leb, C., Lytton, L., Makin, I., & Saeed, B. (2019). Pakistan. World Bank, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.1596/31160 Yu, W., Yang, Y.C., Savitsky, A., Alford, D., Brown, C., Wescoat, J. and Debowicz, D. (2013). The Indus basin of Pakistan: The impacts of climate risks on water and agriculture. World Bank Publications.
Year 2023, Volume: 1 Issue: 6, 57 - 77, 24.01.2023

Abstract

Project Number

Water Diplomacy Program

References

  • Adeel, Z., & Wirsing, R. G. (Eds.). (2017). Imagining Industan. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32845-4 Aijaz, A., & Akhter, M. (2020). From building dams to fetching water: Scales of politicization in the indus basin. Water, 12(5), 1351. https://doi.org/10.3390/w12051351
  • Akhter, M. (2017). The political ecology of the water scarcity/security nexus in the indus basin: Decentering per capita water supply. In Z. Adeel & R. G. Wirsing (Eds.), Imagining Industan (pp. 21–33). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32845-4_2
  • Anwar, A. A., & Bhatti, M. T. (2018). Pakistan’s Water Apportionment Accord of 1991: 25 years and beyond. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 144(1), 05017015. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0000831
  • Archer, D. R., Forsythe, N., Fowler, H. J., & Shah, S. M. (2010). Sustainability of water resources management in the Indus Basin under changing climatic and socio economic conditions. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 14(8), 1669–1680. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-14-1669-2010
  • Arfan, M., Ansari, K., Ullah, A., Hassan, D., Siyal, A., & Jia, S. (2020). Agenda setting in water and IWRM: Discourse analysis of water policy debate in pakistan. Water, 12(6), 1656. https://doi.org/10.3390/w12061656
  • Asian Development Bank (ADB). (2013). Asian Water Development Outlook 2013: Measuring Water Security in Asia and the Pacific. Asia Pacific Water Forum, Asian Development Bank, Philippines. https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/30190/asian-water-development-outlook-2013.pdf.
  • Bhatti, M. T., Anwar, A. A., & Shah, M. A. A. (2019). Revisiting telemetry in pakistan’s indus basin irrigation system. Water, 11(11), 2315. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11112315
  • Briscoe, J., & Qamar, U. (2006). Pakistan’s water economy: Running dry. Oxford University Press; The World Bank.
  • Cash, D. W., Adger, W. N., Berkes, F., Garden, P., Lebel, L., Olsson, P., Pritchard, L., & Young, O. (2006). Scale and cross-scale dynamics: Governance and information in a multilevel world. Ecology and Society, 11(2), art8. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-01759-110208
  • Cilliers, P., Biggs, H. C., Blignaut, S., Choles, A. G., Hofmeyr, J.-H. S., Jewitt, G. P. W., & Roux, D. J. (2013). Complexity, modeling, and natural resource management. Ecology and Society, 18(3), art1. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05382-180301
  • Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FODP). (2012). A productive and water secure Pakistan. The Report of the Water Sector Task Force of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FODP). http://mowr.gov.pk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/FoDP-WSTF-Report-Final-09-29-12.pdf.
  • Garrick, D., Anderson, G., Connell, D., & Pittock, J. (2014). Federal rivers. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781781955055
  • Groenfeldt, D., & Schmidt, J. J. (2013). Ethics and water governance. Ecology and Society, 18(1), art14. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04629-180114
  • Gupta, J. (2008). Global change: Analysing scale and scaling in environmental governance. Institutions and Environmental Change: Principal Findings, Applications, and Research Frontiers, 225–258. https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/global-change-analysing-scale-and-scaling-in-environmental-govern
  • Gupta, J., & Pahl-Wostl, C. (2013). Global water governance in the context of global and multilevel governance: Its need, form, and challenges. Ecology and Society, 18(4), art53. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05952-180453
  • Hayat, S. (2020). Inclusive development and multilevel transboundary water governance—The Kabul River. https://cdm21063.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/phd1/id/53983
  • Janjua, S., Hassan, I., & Islam, S. (2020). Role and relevance of three enabling conditions to resolve inter-provincial water conflicts in the Indus basin within Pakistan. Water Policy, 22(5), 811–824. https://doi.org/10.2166/wp.2020.230
  • Kramer, D. B., Hartter, J., Boag, A. E., Jain, M., Stevens, K., Nicholas, K. A., McConnell, W. J., & Liu, J. (2017). Top 40 questions in coupled human and natural systems (Chans) research. Ecology and Society, 22(2), art44. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09429-220244
  • Lebel, L., Garden, P., & Imamura, M. (2005). The politics of scale, position, and place in the governance of water resources in the Mekong region. Ecology and Society, 10(2), art18. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-01543-100218
  • Liu, J., Dietz, T., Carpenter, S. R., Alberti, M., Folke, C., Moran, E., Pell, A. N., Deadman, P., Kratz, T., Lubchenco, J., Ostrom, E., Ouyang, Z., Provencher, W., Redman, C. L., Schneider, S. H., & Taylor, W. W. (2007). Complexity of coupled human and natural systems. Science, 317(5844), 1513–1516. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1144004
  • Lutz, A. F., Immerzeel, W. W., Gobiet, A., Pellicciotti, F., & Bierkens, M. F. P. (2013). Comparison of climate change signals in CMIP3 and CMIP5 multi-model ensembles and implications for Central Asian glaciers. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 17(9), 3661–3677. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-17-3661-2013
  • Moss, T., & Newig, J. (2010). Multilevel water governance and problems of scale: Setting the stage for a broader debate. Environmental Management, 46(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-010-9531-1
  • Mustafa, D. (2010). Hydropolitics in Pakistan's Indus Basin. Washington DC: US Institute of Peace. https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/SR261%20-%20Hydropolitics_in_Pakistan%27s%20_Indus_Basin.pdf.
  • Norman, E. S., Bakker, K., & Cook, C. (2012). Introduction to the themed section: Water governance and the politics of scale. Water Alternatives, 5(1).
  • Norman, E. S., & Bakker, K. (2015). Do good fences make good neighbours? Canada–United States transboundary water governance, the Boundary Waters Treaty, and twenty-first-century challenges. Water International, 40(1), 199–213. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2014.978973
  • Ostrom, E. (1999). Institutional rational choice: An assessment of the institutional analysis and development framework. In Theories of the Policy Process, Theoretical lenses on public policy (pp. 35–72). Westview Press.
  • Padt, F., Opdam, P., Polman, N., & Termeer, C. (Eds.). (2014). Scale-sensitive governance of the environment. Wiley Blackwell.
  • Pahl-Wostl, C. (2008). Requirements for adaptive water management. In C. Pahl-Wostl, P. Kabat, & J. Möltgen (Eds.), Adaptive and Integrated Water Management (pp. 1–22). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75941-6_1
  • Rajbhandari, R., Shrestha, A. B., Kulkarni, A., Patwardhan, S. K., & Bajracharya, S. R. (2015). Projected changes in climate over the Indus river basin using a high resolution regional climate model (Precis). Climate Dynamics, 44(1–2), 339–357. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2183-8
  • Sattar, E., Robison, J., & McCool, D. (2018). Evolution of water institutions in the indus river basin: Reflections from the law of the colorado river. University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, 51(4), 715–775. https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjlr/vol51/iss4/3
  • Syed, T., & Choudhury, E. (2018). Scale interactions in transboundary water governance of Indus river. International Journal of Water Governance, Volume 6, 64–84. https://doi.org/10.7564/18-IJWG135
  • Syed, T., Choudhury, E., & Islam, S. (2020). An assessment of scale-sensitivity in policy design and implementation of the EU water framework directive within the context of the Danube basin. Water Alternatives, 13(3), 634–658. https://search.proquest.com/docview/2451133006/abstract/2040F6B248614255PQ/1?accountid=27683
  • Termeer, C., & Dewulf, A. (2014). Scale-sensitivity as a governance capability: Observing, acting and enabling. In F. Padt, P. Opdam, N. Polman, & C. Termeer (Eds.), Scale-sensitive Governance of the Environment (pp. 38–55). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118567135.ch3
  • United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2017). The Vulnerability of Pakistan’s Water Sector to the Impacts of Climate Change: Identification of Gaps and Recommendations for Action. Islamabad, Pakistan: UNDP. http://www.pk.undp.org/content/dam/pakistan/docs/Environment%20&%20Climate%20Change /Report.pdf.
  • Wester, P., Mishra, A., Mukherji, A., & Shrestha, A. B. (Eds.). (2019). The Hindu Kush Himalaya assessment: Mountains, climate change, sustainability and people. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92288-1
  • Yang, Y.-C. E., Brown, C., Yu, W., Wescoat, J., & Ringler, C. (2014). Water governance and adaptation to climate change in the Indus River Basin. Journal of Hydrology, 519, 2527–2537. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.08.055
  • Young, O., Lambin, E., Alcock, F., Haberl, H., Karlsson, S., McConnell, W., Myint, T., Pahl-Wostl, C., Polsky, C., Ramakrishnan, P. S., Schroeder, H., Scouvart, M., & Verburg, P. (2006). A portfolio approach to analyzing complex human-environment interactions: Institutions and land change. Ecology and Society, 11(2). https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-01799-110231
  • Young, O. R. (2002). The institutional dimensions of environmental change: Fit, interplay, and scale. MIT Press.
  • Young, W. J., Anwar, A., Bhatti, T., Borgomeo, E., Davies, S., Garthwaite III, W. R., Gilmont, E. M., Leb, C., Lytton, L., Makin, I., & Saeed, B. (2019). Pakistan. World Bank, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.1596/31160 Yu, W., Yang, Y.C., Savitsky, A., Alford, D., Brown, C., Wescoat, J. and Debowicz, D. (2013). The Indus basin of Pakistan: The impacts of climate risks on water and agriculture. World Bank Publications.
There are 39 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects International Relations
Journal Section Research Articles
Authors

Tahira Syed

Project Number Water Diplomacy Program
Publication Date January 24, 2023
Published in Issue Year 2023 Volume: 1 Issue: 6

Cite

MLA Syed, Tahira. “Scale Issues in Design and Implementation of the Water Apportionment Accord in the Indus Basin”. International Journal of Water Management and Diplomacy, vol. 1, no. 6, pp. 57-77.


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