Despite the river’s volatility, our politics remain trapped in the comfort of familiar fights.

Climate change is reshaping the Indus Basin far faster than Pakistan’s institutions can respond. The 2025 monsoon made this brutally clear. According to assessments by the United Nations, Government of Pakistan, and multiple international reporting agencies, the floods inundated roughly 5.4 million acres, including about three million acres of cropland, killed an estimated 6,000 livestock, and caused at least Rs 822 billion in agricultural and immediate economic losses, while overall damages assessed by the World Bank exceed USD 30 billion. Human fatalities were estimated at 800–1,000 people. Forecasts from PMD and regional climate forums had already warned of above-normal monsoon rainfall weeks in advance, yet Pakistan entered the crisis with antiquated canals, silted drains, and governance systems designed for a river that no longer behaves according to

historical patterns.

The paradox that emerged at the end of the 2025 Kharif season captures Pakistan’s water crisis better than any political debate. After a monsoon with inflows nearly 20 per cent above the 10-year average, Pakistan’s major reservoirs, Tarbela, Mangla, and Chashma, were reported by IRSA to be filled to capacity, holding around 13.2 million acre-feet of live storage as of 30 September. Yet within days, IRSA still approved an 8 per cent shortage for the Rabi season. It was the lowest shortage in years, but that is hardly the point. Full dams and declared shortages in the same breath expose a deeper truth: Pakistan’s water crisis is not hydrological. It is institutional.

Despite the river’s volatility, our politics remain trapped in the comfort of familiar fights: provincial shares, IRSA calculations, and the 1991 Water Apportionment Accord allocations. Climate change has pushed the Indus into a new era, but Pakistan refuses to update the way it governs the river. Looking across Asia for something similar, I came across the Lower Mekong Basin which faces similar pressures and unpredictable violent monsoons, upstream hydropower dams, salinity intrusion, land subsidence; it has consciously modernised its governance in ways Pakistan has not.

The most important lesson from the Mekong is that adapting to climate resilience begins with shared, trusted data. The Mekong River Commission (MRC) operates basin-wide real-time telemetry, satellite-based monitoring, open-access dashboards, and joint technical investigations that allow governments to negotiate with evidence rather than suspicion. Data is not a political weapon; it is a shared foundation. Pakistan, by contrast, still depends on patchy telemetry, manual readings reported by provinces, and politically contested numbers. When Punjab and Sindh disagree, IRSA cannot settle the issue with real-time verification; it settles it with votes. A technical matter decided politically — every disagreement becomes political-technical. Full reservoirs and declared shortages are symptoms of this deeper failure.

A second lesson from the Mekong is the integration of climate signals into water planning. Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia align reservoir operations, cropping calendars, and floodplain zoning with seasonal climate forecasts. These countries understand that governance must evolve as the river evolves. Pakistan, however, continues to operate dams and barrages using decades-old manuals written for a stable hydrological regime. Cropping seasons are still planned as if monsoons follow predictable patterns. Floodplain encroachment continues unchecked. River training remains reactive. Provincial politics routinely override basin logic. A river that has changed dramatically is being managed by institutions that have barely changed at all.

A third lesson concerns performance. While Pakistan debates water shares, the Mekong countries have focused on improving productivity. Vietnam’s remarkable rise in rice yields, from roughly 0.8 tonnes per acre in the mid-1970s to over 2.2 tonnes per acre today, was not achieved through greater water availability but through farmer training, extension services, water-saving technologies, and field-level innovation. Pakistan, meanwhile, continues to waste enormous volumes of water through inefficiency and outdated crop choices. The Indus brings roughly 140 million acre-feet of water annually, yet around half is lost through seepage, salinity, illegal diversions, and poor irrigation practices. Crop selection needs careful evaluation. Sugarcane alone consumes about 18 MAF each year despite having a very low sugar content and some of the lowest water productivity in the world. Rice consumes another 14 MAF, with farmers applying nearly double the agronomic requirement, wasting an estimated over 3.5 MAF each season. Pakistan’s farmers pump around 50 MAF of groundwater annually, most of it in Punjab, nearly a “second Indus” underground. Upper Sindh has almost half its irrigated land affected by waterlogging and salinity, steadily degrading productivity. Pakistan also exports around 8.1 MAF of precious “virtual water” each year through rice exports alone.

Climate change did not create these vulnerabilities; it is simply amplifying them. The Indus Basin is not running out of water. It is running out of resilience.

Extreme monsoons overwhelm fragile, ageing infrastructure. Droughts accelerate groundwater extraction. Heatwaves increase crop water demand. Waterlogging and salinity spread faster under poor drainage and inefficient irrigation. The river is not the problem; the system built to manage it is.

If Pakistan hopes to survive the coming decades of climate volatility, it must adopt a new governance mind-set inspired by what has worked elsewhere. That begins with real-time transparency across the basin — telemetry that functions, automated flow measurement, satellite-verified crop monitoring, and open dashboards that depoliticise information. No federation can govern a destabilised river without a shared truth. It also requires climate-responsive planning, where allocations, reservoir operations, and cropping decisions are guided by climate forecasts rather than historical averages. Equally important is making provincial performance measurable, so that efficiency, productivity, and compliance — not political bargaining — drive water decisions. Pakistan must move decisively away from water-intensive crops that the Indus can no longer afford.

The Indus of today is not the Indus of 1991. It is more unpredictable, more volatile, and more dangerous. The Lower Mekong Basin recognised early that climate resilience begins where politics ends — with institutions, data, and efficiency. Pakistan still has time to learn that lesson, but the window is narrowing.

The choice Pakistan faces is not between provinces or between dams and canals. It is between governance reform and climate collapse. Climate change has changed the Indus. It is time Pakistan changed with it.

Mohsin Leghari;
The writer is a former Senator, MPA, MNA, and former Minister of Irrigation Punjab.