PAKISTAN’S stance on India’s unilateral suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty is rooted in its legal rights concerning the Indus basin’s western rivers under the treaty. Walking away from the treaty is a breach of obligation by India. Moreover, the threat to stop flows to the lower riparian is a human rights violation. Anxiety and warning of reciprocal action were only to be expected. Fortunately, the reality is that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s threats have to cross several, practically insurmountable hurdles to achieve their aim.

Pakistan’s waters are guarded by certain geographical features of the upper Indus basin. As against three eastern rivers allocated to India, Pakistan’s rivers traverse a complex topography of deep gorges, steep cliffs, freezing temperatures, seismic vulnerability and sparse demography. The Indus and Jhelum allow few feasible options for diversion or large-scale storage in areas within the Indian remit. The Chenab also flows through narrow canyons and cramped valleys barely 100 to 500 metres wide. Its elevation plummets from 4,800m at the headwaters to barely 300m as it approaches Pakistan. Nevertheless, India has options of erecting small hydropower dams that can create fleeting disturbances in downstream flows through managed cascading effects.

The orography of mountains in the upper Indus basin — the Himalaya, Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges — reveals them as young formations with a geological uplift age of 50 million years. This makes them susceptible to rapid erosion and releasing colossal volumes of sediment. The capacity of reservoirs in these erosive mountains and foothills will be prone to fast depletion.

The Indus flows through the cold desert of Ladakh at an altitude of 3,000m to 4,500m, in a region characterised by deep gorges, narrow valleys and sparse populations and with inhospitable temperatures of up to minus 35 degrees Celsius in the peak of winter. Limited irrigation is practised along the Indus through sporadic lift irrigation to grow barley, wheat and alfalfa during the brief summer. A hostile terrain does not permit sizeable storage and diversion for agriculture, yet it has potential for small hydropower dams that can retain water for shorter durations. Much of the Indus river’s usable run-off is generated after it enters Pakistani territory and its flow is augmented by the glacial tributaries of Shyok, Gilgit and Shigar.

Geography protects Pakistan’s waters

The Jhelum passes through similarly hostile terrain; however, its basin also contains populated towns and fertile land that will be submerged if large storage projects are constructed. Past Baramulla town in India-occupied Kashmir, the river’s altitude drops abruptly, narrowing its passage through the Pir Panjal range. Any large reservoir would pose serious risk of inundation to several settlements in the vicinity of Uri, Boniyar and possibly Baramulla, depending on the location and storage capacity of the dam. Such a dam would submerge fertile land including apple orchards, paddy fields and other croplands in these areas.

Another restrictive feature is the region’s seismology. Both the Indus and Jhelum basins are located in a tectonically active zone with a history of high-intensity earthquakes. The region experienced the devastating earthquake of 2005 — 7.6 on the Richter scale — which killed over 75,000 people. Any large reservoirs will be vulnerable to seismic shocks and may also contribute to reservoir-induced seismicity.

India has also announced the 8.7-kilometre-long Chenab-Beas Tunnel Link Project to transfer water from the Chandra river, a tributary of the Chenab, to the Beas river basin. The project entails a 19m-high concrete barrage to generate 4,000 megawatts of hydel power. The ambitious multimillion-dollar project is located at an altitude of 3,000m in extremely challenging terrain. The region’s hydrological data suggests that the tunnel will hardly transfer one million acre feet of water — mostly during the peak summer when Pakistan has abundant flows in its rivers. Winter flows are just a trickle at the location as the mercury plummets to -20oC. The region falls within Indian seismic zone IV, adjacent to zone V, the highest seismically hazardous region of the western Himalayas. The project area regularly experiences small to moderate earthquakes. The area is also highly prone to landslides because of freeze-thaw cycles, intense snowfall, avalanches, glacial melt and monsoon erosion on the slopes.

Although the technical and financial viability of the project makes it impractical, India can still embark upon it in a fit of hostility against Pakistan. Pakistan needs to remain vigilant and also focus on a multidimensional response to counter this upstream hydro-hegemony.

The writer is senior adviser, water governance, at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute.

nmemon2004@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2026