Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

Transboundary cooperation a potential route to sustainable development in the Indus basin

Nature Sustainability volume 4, pages 331–339 (2021)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

With a rapidly growing population of 250 million, the Indus river basin in South Asia is one of the most intensively cultivated regions on Earth, highly water stressed and lacking energy security. Yet, most studies advising sustainable development policy have lacked multi-sectoral and cross-country perspectives. Here we show how the countries in the Indus basin could lower costs for development and reduce soil pollution and water stress by cooperating on water resources and electricity and food production. According to this analysis, Indus basin countries need to increase investments to US$10 billion per yr to mitigate water scarcity issues and ensure improved access to resources by 2050. These costs could shrink to US$2 billion per yr, with economic gains for all, if countries pursued more collaborative policies. Downstream regions would benefit most, with reduced food and energy costs and improved water access, while upstream regions would benefit from new energy investments. Using integrated water–energy–land analysis, this study quantifies the potential benefits of novel avenues to sustainable development arising from greater international cooperation.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Expected growth in demand in the Indus basin from 2020 to 2050.
Fig. 2: Maps of annual water stress indicators.
Fig. 3: Total basin average yearly costs.
Fig. 4: SDG versus SDG–coop scenarios for electricity, agriculture, river flows and sectoral annual savings.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

Processed input data used for model runs that support the findings of this study, and associated model code, are publicly available (in the .RData format) at https://github.com/iiasa/NEST. Availability of raw data is in some cases subject to third-party restrictions. The data are however available from the corresponding author upon request, subject to permission, when this applies.

Code availability

Model code updated to the scenarios described in this publication is also available for download at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4037884.

References

  1. Laghari, A. N., Vanham, D. & Rauch, W. The Indus basin in the framework of current and future water resources management. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 16, 1063–1083 (2012).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Wada, Y. et al. Co-designing Indus water–energy–land futures. One Earth 1, 185–194 (2019).

    Google Scholar 

  3. AQUASTAT Transboundary River Basin Overview—Indus (FAO, 2011); https://go.nature.com/2KxKRqB

  4. Aslam, M. Agricultural productivity current scenario, constraints and future prospects in Pakistan. Sarhad J. Agric. 32, 289–303 (2016).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Karimi, P., Bastiaanssen, W. G. M., Molden, D. & Cheema, M. J. M. Basin-wide water accounting based on remote sensing data: an application for the Indus basin. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 17, 2473–2486 (2013).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Akhter, M. in Imagining Industan—Overcoming Water Insecurity in the Indus Basin (eds Adeel, Z. & Wirsing, R. G.) 21–33 (Springer, 2017); https://go.nature.com/3pVNgvo

  7. Yu, W. et al. Indus Basin of Pakistan: Impacts of Climate Risks on Water and Agriculture (World Bank, 2013); https://go.nature.com/3kY7dxV

  8. Cheema, M., Immerzeel, W. & Bastiaanssen, W. Spatial quantification of groundwater abstraction in the irrigated Indus Basin. Groundwater 52, 25–36 (2014).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Syvitski, J. P. et al. Anthropocene metamorphosis of the Indus Delta and lower floodplain. Anthropocene 3, 24–35 (2013).

    Google Scholar 

  10. Adeel, Z. & Wirsing, R. G. in Imagining Industan—Overcoming Water Insecurity in the Indus Basin (eds Adeel, Z. & Wirsing, R. G.) 3–20 (Springer, 2017); https://go.nature.com/3pYJHF1

  11. Raman, D. Damming and infrastructural development of the Indus River basin: strengthening the provisions of the indus waters treaty. Asian J. Int. Law 8, 372–402 (2018).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Archer, D. R., Forsythe, N., Fowler, H. J. & Shah, S. M. Sustainability of water resources management in the Indus Basin under changing climatic and socio economic conditions. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 14, 1669–1680 (2010).

    Google Scholar 

  13. Just, R. E. & Netanyahu, S. Conflict and Cooperation on Trans-Boundary Water Resources (Springer, 1998).

  14. Qamar, M. U., Azmat, M. & Claps, P. Pitfalls in transboundary Indus Water Treaty: a perspective to prevent unattended threats to the global security. npj Clean Water 2, 22 (2019).

    Google Scholar 

  15. Grill, G. et al. Mapping the world’s free-flowing rivers. Nature 569, 215–221 (2019).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Wu, X. & Whittington, D. Incentive compatibility and conflict resolution in international river basins: a case study of the Nile Basin. Water Resour. Res. 42, W02417 (2006).

    Google Scholar 

  17. Keskinen, M. et al. The water–energy–food nexus and the transboundary context: insights from large Asian rivers. Water 8, 193 (2016).

    Google Scholar 

  18. Bhaduri, A. et al. Achieving Sustainable Development Goals from a water perspective. Front. Environ. Sci. 4, 64 (2016).

    Google Scholar 

  19. Howells, M. et al. Integrated analysis of climate change, land-use, energy and water strategies. Nat. Clim. Change 3, 621–626 (2013).

    Google Scholar 

  20. Liu, J. et al. Nexus approaches to global sustainable development. Nat. Sustain. 1, 466–476 (2018).

    Google Scholar 

  21. Bleischwitz, R. et al. Resource nexus perspectives towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Nat. Sustain. 1, 737–743 (2018).

    Google Scholar 

  22. Albrecht, T. R., Crootof, A. & Scott, C. A. The water–energy–food nexus: a systematic review of methods for Nexus assessment. Environ. Res. Lett. 13, 043002 (2018).

    Google Scholar 

  23. Kaddoura, S. & El Khatib, S. Review of water–energy–food nexus tools to improve the nexus modelling approach for integrated policy making. Environ. Sci. Policy 77, 114–121 (2017).

    Google Scholar 

  24. Siddiqi, A. & Wescoat, J. L. Energy use in large-scale irrigated agriculture in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Water Int. 38, 571–586 (2013).

    Google Scholar 

  25. Stewart, J. et al. Indus River System Model (IRSM)—a Planning Tool to Explore Water Management Options in Pakistan: Model Conceptualisation, Configuration and Calibration (CSIRO Land & Water, 2018); https://go.nature.com/3q4rkyz

  26. Yang, Y. C. E., Ringler, C., Brown, C. & Mondal, M. A. H. Modeling the agricultural water–energy–food nexus in the Indus River basin, Pakistan. J. Water Resour. Plan. Manag. 142, 04016062 (2016).

    Google Scholar 

  27. de Strasser, L., Lipponen, A., Howells, M., Stec, S. & Bréthaut, C. A methodology to assess the water energy food ecosystems nexus in transboundary river basins. Water 8, 59 (2016).

    Google Scholar 

  28. Parrachino, I., Dinar, A. & Patrone, F. Cooperative Game Theory and its Application to Natural, Environmental, and Water Resource Issues: 3. Application to Water Resources Policy Research Working Papers (World Bank, 2006); https://go.nature.com/2UXhPCQ

  29. Singh, A., Jamasb, T., Nepal, R. & Toman, M. A. Cross-Border Electricity Cooperation in South Asia Policy Research Working Paper No. 7328 (World Bank, 2015).

  30. Hasson, R., Löfgren, Å. & Visser, M. Climate change in a public goods game: investment decision in mitigation versus adaptation. Ecol. Econ. 70, 331–338 (2010).

    Google Scholar 

  31. Dalin, C., Wada, Y., Kastner, T. & Puma, M. J. Groundwater depletion embedded in international food trade. Nature 543, 700–704 (2017).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  32. Kalair, A. R. et al. Water, energy and food nexus of Indus Water Treaty: water governance. Water-Energy Nexus 2, 10–24 (2019).

    Google Scholar 

  33. Vinca, A. et al. The NExus Solutions Tool (NEST) v1.0: an open platform for optimizing multi-scale energy-water-land system transformations. Geosci. Model Dev. 13, 1095–1121 (2020).

    Google Scholar 

  34. Mir, K. A., Purohit, P. & Mehmood, S. Sectoral assessment of greenhouse gas emissions in Pakistan. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 24, 27345–27355 (2017).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  35. Ahmad, B. & Saqlain, S. People perception regarding possible impact of urbanization on environmental degradation in Islamabad. IAU Int. J. Soc. Sci. 8, 1–10 (2018).

    Google Scholar 

  36. Scott, C. A., Vicuña, S., Blanco-Gutiérrez, I., Meza, F. & Varela-Ortega, C. Irrigation efficiency and water-policy implications for river basin resilience. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 18, 1339–1348 (2014).

    Google Scholar 

  37. Grafton, R. Q. et al. The paradox of irrigation efficiency. Science 361, 748–750 (2018).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  38. Baum, R., Luh, J. & Bartram, J. Sanitation: A global estimate of sewerage connections without treatment and the resulting impact on MDG progress. Environ. Sci. Technol. 47, 1994–2000 (2013).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  39. González-villareal, F. & Schultz, B. Final Report of IPOE for Review of Studies on Water Escapages Below Kotri Barrage Technical Report (ResearchGate, 2018); https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.28670.02885

  40. Casillas, C. E. & Kammen, D. M. The energy–poverty–climate nexus. Science 26, 1181–1182 (2010).

    Google Scholar 

  41. GDP (current US$)—Pakistan (World Bank, 2020); https://go.nature.com/2KCSDzB

  42. Singh, A., Jamasb, T., Nepal, R. & Toman, M. Electricity cooperation in South Asia: barriers to cross-border trade. Energy Policy 120, 741–748 (2018).

    Google Scholar 

  43. Rasul, G., Neupane, N., Hussain, A. & Pasakhala, B. Beyond hydropower: towards an integrated solution for water, energy and food security in South Asia. Int. J. Water Resour. Dev. https://doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2019.1579705 (2019).

  44. Lutz, A. F., Immerzeel, W. W., Kraaijenbrink, P. D., Shrestha, A. B. & Bierkens, M. F. Climate change impacts on the upper Indus hydrology: sources, shifts and extremes. PLoS ONE 11, e0165630 (2016).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  45. Maurer, J. M., Schaefer, J. M., Rupper, S. & Corley, A. Acceleration of ice loss across the Himalayas over the past 40 years. Sci. Adv. 5, eaav7266 (2019).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  46. Immerzeel, W. W., Van Beek, L. P. & Bierkens, M. F. Climate change will affect the Asian water towers. Science 328, 1382–1385 (2010).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  47. Biemans, H. et al. Importance of snow and glacier meltwater for agriculture on the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Nat. Sustain. 2, 594–601 (2019).

    Google Scholar 

  48. Majhi, B. & Kumar, A. Changing cropping pattern in Indian agriculture. J. Econ. Soc. Dev. 14, 37–45 (2018).

    Google Scholar 

  49. Burek, P. et al. Development of the Community Water Model (CWatM v1.04)—a high-resolution hydrological model for global and regional assessment of integrated water resources management. Geosci. Model Dev. 13, 3267–3298 (2020).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  50. Huppmann, D. et al. The MESSAGEix Integrated Assessment Model and the ix modeling platform (ixmp): an open framework for integrated and cross-cutting analysis of energy, climate, the environment, and sustainable development. Environ. Model. Softw. 112, 143–156 (2019).

    Google Scholar 

  51. Messner, S. & Strubegger, M. User’s Guide for MESSAGE III IIASA Working Paper (IIASA, 1995).

  52. Riahi, K., Grübler, A. & Nakicenovic, N. Scenarios of long-term socio-economic and environmental development under climate stabilization. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 74, 887–935 (2007).

    Google Scholar 

  53. Van Vliet, O. et al. Synergies in the Asian energy system: climate change, energy security, energy access and air pollution. Energy Econ. 34, S470–S480 (2012).

    Google Scholar 

  54. Kiani, B. et al. Optimal electricity system planning in a large hydro jurisdiction: will British Columbia soon become a major importer of electricity? Energy Policy 54, 311–319 (2013).

    Google Scholar 

  55. Salmivaara, A. et al. Exploring the modifiable areal unit problem in spatial water assessments: a case of water shortage in monsoon Asia. Water 7, 898–917 (2015).

    Google Scholar 

  56. Yang, Y.-C. E., Brown, C. M., Yu, W. H. & Savitsky, A. An introduction to the IBMR, a hydro-economic model for climate change impact assessment in Pakistan’s Indus River basin. Water Int. 38, 632–650 (2013).

    Google Scholar 

  57. Kahil, T. et al. A continental-scale hydroeconomic model for integrating water-energy-land nexus solutions. Water Resour. Res 54, 7511–7533 (2018).

    Google Scholar 

  58. Kim, S. H. et al. Balancing global water availability and use at basin scale in an integrated assessment model. Clim. Change 136, 217–231 (2016).

    Google Scholar 

  59. Payet-Burin, R., Kromann, M., Pereira-Cardenal, S., Strzepek, K. M. & Bauer-Gottwein, P. WHAT-IF: an open-source decision support tool for water infrastructure investment planning within the water–energy–food-climate nexus. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 23, 4129–4152 (2019).

    Google Scholar 

  60. Sridharan, V., Shivakumar, A., Niet, T., Ramos, E. P. & Howells, M. Land, energy and water resource management and its impact on GHG emissions, electricity supply and food production- Insights from a Ugandan case study. Environ. Res. Commun. 2, 085003 (2020).

    Google Scholar 

  61. Saif, Y. & Almansoori, A. An optimization framework for the climate, land, energy, and water (CLEWS) nexus by a discrete optimization model. Energy Procedia 105, 3232–3238 (2017).

    Google Scholar 

  62. Smakhtin, V. U., Revenga, C. & Doll, P. Taking Into Account Environmental Water Requirements in Global-scale Water Resources Assessments IWMI Research Reports (IWMI, 2004).

  63. Van Vuuren, D. P. et al. The representative concentration pathways: an overview. Clim. Change 109, 5 (2011).

    Google Scholar 

  64. O’Neill, B. C. et al. The roads ahead: narratives for shared socioeconomic pathways describing world futures in the 21st century. Glob. Environ. Change 42, 169–180 (2017).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Global Environment Facility (GEF) for funding the development of this research as part of the Integrated Solutions for Water, Energy, and Land (ISWEL) project (GEF Contract Agreement: 6993), and the support of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). This research has also been supported by the University of Victoria’s Building Connections internal grant and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. We thank A. Hillers, R. Novak, D. Grey, L. Srivastava and Y. Sokona, members of the ISWEL steering committee, for the enthusiasm and support that characterized the whole collaboration.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria

    Adriano Vinca, Simon Parkinson, Keywan Riahi, Edward Byers, Barbara Willaarts, Piotr Magnuszewski & Muhammad Awais

  2. Institute for Integrated Energy Systems, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

    Adriano Vinca, Simon Parkinson, Keywan Riahi, Muhammad Awais, Andrew Rowe & Ned Djilali

  3. Institute for Thermal Engineering, TU Graz, Graz, Austria

    Keywan Riahi

  4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Afreen Siddiqi

  5. Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Afreen Siddiqi

  6. Center for Water Informatics and Technology, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan

    Abubakr Muhammad & Ansir Ilyas

  7. TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi, India

    Nithiyanandam Yogeswaran

  8. Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China

    Ned Djilali

Authors
  1. Adriano Vinca
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Simon Parkinson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Keywan Riahi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Edward Byers
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Afreen Siddiqi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Abubakr Muhammad
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Ansir Ilyas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Nithiyanandam Yogeswaran
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Barbara Willaarts
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Piotr Magnuszewski
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Muhammad Awais
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  12. Andrew Rowe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  13. Ned Djilali
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

A.V., S.P., A.S., A.M., A.I., P.M. and K.R. conceived of the research questions and scenario design. A.S., A.M., A.I., B.W., N.Y. and M.A. helped enrich the regional background of the research. A.V. and S.P. led model development. A.V. led the analysis of results, the preparation of figures, data tables and online repositories, and the writing of the manuscript. All the authors contributed to reviewing the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Adriano Vinca.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Sustainability thanks Neal Graham, Joseph Guillaume and Mark Howells for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Population and GDP projections.

Population trend and GDP per capita in the Indus basin, from 2010 to 2060.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Exogenous demands.

Exogenous agriculture products (a) electricity (b) and water (c) demands. For each country and the whole Indus basin, from 2010 to 2050. Endogenous cross sectoral demands (that is water for agriculture, energy far water management) depend on the scenario considered.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Sectoral cost differences.

Total cost changes between SDG-coop and BAU (a) and between0020SDG-coop and SDG (b) scenario by country, changes refer to areas within the basin boundary.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Country socio-environmental benefits.

Sectorial socio-environmental benefits of SDG and SDG-coop scenarios with respect to BAU in 2050. indicators: Cumulative air pollutants’ emissions from electricity generation and land use (SO2, CO, NH3, VOC); cumulative CO2 equivalent emitted; average surface and groundwater use per unit of crop product; cumulative release of pollutants from fertilizers (K2O, N, N2O, P2O5, VOC); number of people with not access to sanitation and clean water; difference between lowest and highest discharge river level across scenarios.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–5, Tables 1–7, Discussion and Methods.

Reporting Summary

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Vinca, A., Parkinson, S., Riahi, K. et al. Transboundary cooperation a potential route to sustainable development in the Indus basin. Nat Sustain 4, 331–339 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-00654-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-00654-7

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing Anthropocene

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Anthropocene