Context: Three major new studies by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the Australian Water Partnership (AWP) emphasize climate change as a crucial catalyst for collaboration across the Indus, Ganga, and Brahmaputra river basins in Asia.

About report

• In 2019, the AWP signed an MoU with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

• This MoU aimed to enhance bilateral water cooperation between Australia and countries in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan.

Key highlights of the report

Importance of the rivers

• People in India, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bhutan rely on the Indus, Ganga, and Brahmaputra rivers for food and water security.

• These river basins directly impact millions of people in these countries.

• The Hindu Kush Himalayas serve as a vital freshwater source for South and Southeast Asia, with the Ganges basin supporting over 600 million people.

Challenges

• Impact on River Basins: Rapid urbanization and industrialization threaten this crucial water supply, exacerbating pollution from sewage and industrial waste, endangering both water quality and public health.

• Climate Change Impact: Exacerbates existing challenges, leading to escalating flooding and droughts, particularly during the critical monsoon season, disproportionately affecting vulnerable groups such as women, people with disabilities, and marginalized communities.

• Indus River Basin: The Indus River, vital for over 268 million people, faces unprecedented stress due to rising temperatures, erratic monsoons, and environmental degradation, threatening food security, livelihoods, and water security.

• Brahmaputra Basin: Climate change coupled with dams, development work in the Brahmaputra basin intensifies flooding, and droughts, especially in its lower basin, while rising glacial melt rates are expected to impact water availability across the region.

• Fragmented Governance: Basin governance remains fragmented with limited multilateral agreements, often failing to address broader impacts of climate change or involve marginalized stakeholders, necessitating more inclusive approaches.

• Bilateral treaties exist, such as the Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan, but no multilateral agreements address the broader issues.

Key recommendations

• Collaborative action: The report stresses the importance of collaborative action and inclusive policies to tackle climate change challenges in major South Asian river basins.

• Addressing data gaps: Tackle data gaps to improve water management, early warning systems, disaster response, and adopt a comprehensive basin-wide research approach to fill data deficiencies and guide strategic basin planning.

• Need for Regional Cooperation: Regional cooperation is paramount to address the transboundary nature of climate impacts, with initiatives like the "HKH Call to Action" providing a framework for collaborative action and trust-building among basin states.

• Bottom-up approaches involving local communities, such as "Indus Calling," empower them with tools for better water management and resilience building.

• Hydro-Solidarity and Climate Diplomacy: The reports emphasized the need for enhanced 'hydro-solidarity' and climate diplomacy among researchers to foster trust between countries and facilitate greater dialogue.

Integrated river basin management (IRBM)

• The reports highlight strategies to promote negotiations and foster new consensus, particularly by revitalizing existing treaties and exploring new forms of cooperation using integrated river basin management (IRBM) approaches.

• IRBM adopts a holistic approach to river planning, emphasizing the importance of sharing high-quality data on water availability, biodiversity, pollution, ecological health indicators, and disaster risks.

• It also advocates for inclusive discussions involving diverse stakeholder groups, including local and Indigenous communities, as well as vulnerable populations such as women, disabled individuals, and lower caste groups.