Indus River Basin: Water Security and Sustainability

community.

Part I

Indus River Basin—Past, Present and Future

Introduction of Indus River Basin: Water Security and Sustainability

Sadiq I. Khan*; Thomas E. Adams, III†, * University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) at NOAA National Water Center, Tuscaloosa, AL, United States, † TerraPredictions, LLC, Blacksburg, VA, United States

Abstract: The Indus River Basin (IRB) is critically water-stressed. The IRB ranges from the Tibetan Plateau and glacial regions of the Himalayan Mountains to the Cholistan and Thar Deserts and the Indus River Delta, where the Indus empties into the Arabian Sea. The livelihood and health of the inhabitants of the IRB are inexorably bound to natural hydro-climatological seasonal cycles, long-term regional climate trends, and management of IRB water resources. Readers will see that Pakistan is particularly vulnerable to national disputes over reservoir releases of water and water flow information from headwater areas of the Indus, which originate in India, Afghanistan, and China. The complex interplay between the hydro-climatology, management of water resources, agricultural requirements, and geopolitics directly impact water security and sustainability within the IRB. These issues and more are discussed by an esteemed group of international contributors in the following chapters.

Keywords

Indus River Basin; Hydro-climatology; Water extremes; Water management; Water security; Sustainability

1 Indus River Basin

The Indus River flows from the mountainous terrain of the Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and Himalayan junction and meanders through the productive lands in the southern plains. It is one of the largest transboundary rivers in the world with a drainage area of about 1 million km² and a mean annual discharge of 7900 m³/s. The Indus River Basin (IRB) is shared by four countries, Pakistan, India, China, and Afghanistan; however, the largest basin area is in Pakistan with 61%, followed by India with 29%, and China and Afghanistan with 8%. The Indus River is the lifeblood for > 300 million people, with 61% living in Pakistan, 35% in India, and 4% on the Afghan and Chinese sides of the basin. These countries depend on the IRB as the source of their water, and therefore water security challenges are central to sustainable development of this region. The hydrologic processes in the Indus River are linked by the glaciated mountain valleys with monsoon plains and a deltaic coastline, each of which has extensive and characteristic water management regimes.

Understanding how water becomes intertwined in the dependencies, risks, uncertainties, and opportunities of agriculture, food security, as well as hydropower development is crucial for human development in the Indus Basin. This basin drives the economic, social, and political growth of its surrounding communities. This basin is exceptionally vulnerable to the climatic variability that exacerbates human insecurity (Lutz et al., 2016, 2014; Bocchiola and Diolaiuti, 2013). Moreover, the Indus is a basin of major international importance, influencing environmental, political, and socioeconomic issues throughout the region. The sustainability of water resources in the Indus Basin faces many critical water-related issues, such as the pressures of a rising population and the incessant degradation of ecosystem services, which have resulted in an increase in extreme water conditions that are worsened by inadequate planning and management. Demand for fresh water is rising, but a variety of factors make its future availability uncertain, including population growth, water contamination, groundwater depletion, climate change, and changing land uses. Other factors that will hasten the region's water insecurity are difficult to comprehend at this point, such as the exact impact of climate change on the hydrology of the Indus Basin.

One challenging aspect in studying water resources is the phenomenon of too much water, too little water within the context of a changing climate. For instance, the Indus River is the backbone of the agricultural sector, and since irrigation uses 96% of the diverted water resources, a shortage of water can incapacitate the economy of the region. Moreover, floods can create economic damage, such as the devastating 2010 flood that caused an estimated US$10 billion of economic damage.

It is argued that these complex interlinkages and issues of the Indus River will be magnified by a changing climate. Uncertainties surrounding climate change only compound the problem. Therefore it is imperative to understand the dynamic relationships among climate-water-agriculture paradigms of the IRB. This book, Indus River Basin: Water Security and Sustainability, covers a range of hydrometeorological variables that are playing a vital role in the sustainability of the Indus Basin in a politically volatile region.

A review of recent research literature shows the use of metaphorical language to indicate the importance of the IRB, for example, calling the headwaters of the Indus River the third pole of our planet. Some previous studies termed the IRB one of the critical water resource laboratories in the world (Mustafa, 2013; Meadows and Meadows, 1999; Gilmartin, 2015; Akhter, 2017). Because of its unique and diverse hydrologic processes that link High Asia's water towers and glaciers, monsoon plains, and a deltaic coastline, as well as water management systems, this transboundary basin offers rich research opportunities. Scientific literature has been published on the water resources of this basin, particularly regarding the hydrology of the Upper Indus Basin (UIB; Archer, 2003; Archer et al., 2010; Immerzeel and Bierkens, 2012; Immerzeel et al., 2010, 2013; Mukhopadhyay and Khan, 2014; Lutz et al., 2014; Reggiani and Rientjes, 2015; Fowler and Archer, 2006) as well as some monographs focusing particularly on water policies (Gilmartin, 2015; Yang et al., 2014; Mustafa, 2013; Adeel and Wirsing, 2016). However, to date a comprehensive treatment of the hydrology of the IRB focusing on water resources, including consideration of hydrometeorology, ecohydrology, water and food security, water-related extremes, and water management, is lacking. Contributors to this book describe the interconnections between water extremes, food security, and water management that are critical for fully grasping the complex social and political setting of this unique region in South Asia.

The relationship between changing natural environments and changes in the hydrometeorologic processes are at the heart of this book. Readers will find discussions on how this heavily populated region has witnessed significant changes in its agricultural land use and hydrologic regime, with an increase in precipitation in the upper part of the region and a corresponding decrease in the Lower Indus Basin. Research studies have been conducted on the hydrologic processes, such as the summer monsoon that comprises more than half of the IRB's annual rainfall with a long track stretching from the ocean to the convection near the Himalayan foothills. The main focus in this book is on the quantitative aspects rather than the qualitative hydrology of the IRB.

Indus River Basin: Water Security and Sustainability aims at providing details on the existing scientific knowledge of the hydrometeorological process in this transboundary basin. The book covers a range of water security and sustainability issues important for the Indus Basin. The authors discuss hydrologic predictions and explore how new scientific knowledge can enhance human security in critical social and political economies such as irrigated agriculture and food security. The key thematic areas of this book are presented in five parts that are summarized here and detailed later in Section 3 of this chapter.

Part I is a synopsis of the past, current, and future significance of the IRB and explores the complex dynamics of hydrology and socio-hydrology in this unique environment. There are reviews on the various facets of the Indus Basin's water budget ranging from variability in streamflow, precipitation, dynamics of the cryosphere, to projections of these hydrologic variables under climate change. In Part II research studies are outlined on the hydrometeorological processes, such as the summer monsoon that comprises more than half of the IRB's annual rainfall. This section provides details on the water resource dynamics in the region and further explores the problem of growing water scarcity and uncertainty of water availability into the future. Part III discusses the challenges in the coupled human-water system and their implications for food security. The historical and institutional analysis will reveal the increased urgency by the research community to understand water management aspects for sustainability of the region. Part IV outlines the water extreme monitoring, with recommendations on operational flood monitoring and forecasting systems for reducing disaster risks. There is a discussion on how a changing climate will impact the seasonal availability of water resources and exacerbate water-related disasters. Part V focuses on the Indus Basin Irrigation System (IBIS), which is the world's largest contiguous water management system. Readers will see how the development of water management infrastructures is leading to immense pressure on the natural and built environments.

2 A Historical Perspective of the IRB

The IRB's rich history includes the Indus Valley Civilization, also known as the Harappan Civilization, which dated from approximately 4000 BCE through the early- to mid-third millennium BCE. (The Harappa site was discovered in 1921 and 1922 excavations.) The Indus Valley Civilization developed one of the most extensive urban societies in the Old World (Kenoyer, 1998; Possehl, 2002; Wright, 2010). This civilization was established on the alluvial plains of the Indo-Gangetic Basin in modern-day Pakistan and northwestern India (Wright, 2010; Possehl, 2002; Marcus and Sabloff, 2008; Kenoyer, 1998). It was coexistent with the earliest urban societies of Egypt and Mesopotamia but more extensive in area, encompassing an area estimated at ~ 1 million km² (Possehl, 2002). In contrast to the Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, the settlement of the Indus Valley Civilization did not build large, colossal structures. There is no conclusive evidence of palaces or temples. However, the remains of the Indus Valley Civilization's cities indicate noteworthy engineering and urban planning that included elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, water wells, and clusters of large, nonresidential buildings.

The Indus Civilization has long been considered as a river-based society, with urban communities comprising five large settlements built along the water resources; archeologists have indicated that these settlements consisted of cities and numerous smaller urban settlements characterized by distinctive architectural elements and material culture (Kenoyer, 1998; Clark, 2013). Elaborate examples of the Indus Civilization's organization are exemplified by two of its largest cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, which are located adjacent to major Himalayan rivers and monsoon-fed seasonal rivers. Some of the characteristics of these societies include effective wastewater drainage and possibly even public baths and storehouses for grain. Archeologists and anthropologists revealed that the Harappan Civilization was a well-settled civilization and that agriculture was the backbone of that society (Fig. 1). The evidence has further revealed that the Indus River was the main reason for this civilization's agricultural development, economy, and overall prosperity.

Fig. 1 Map of the Indus River Basin and distribution of Indus Civilization communities and cities. Modified from Dixit, Y., Hodell, D.A., Giesche, A., Tandon, S.K., Gázquez, F., Saini, H.S., Skinner, L.C., Mujtaba, S.A.I., Pawar, V., Singh, R.N., Petrie, C.A., 2018. Intensified summer monsoon and the urbanization of Indus civilization in Northwest India. Sci. Rep., 8, 4225

Communities along the Indus River have relied upon well-developed irrigation and water management procedures for agricultural production for many centuries. Wright (2010) and Kenoyer (1998) demonstrated that early inhabitants utilized advanced architecture with dockyards, warehouses, brick platforms, and protective walls. The massive walls likely protected the Harappans from floods and may have deterred military conflicts. It is known that these communities developed techniques for harnessing the rainwater that inundated the Indus. Some researchers attribute the decline of the Indus Civilization to the hydrometeorological extremes or natural disasters such as mega floods or droughts that impacted the agriculture and economy. Consequently, the beginning and end of this civilization revolved around the water from the rivers in this unique region.

During the Buddhist, Sultanate, Mughal, and Sikh eras (in the Common Era, or CE), several communities flourished in the IRB. In chronicles of these eras, during the Sultanate era (11th–15th centuries) and Mughal era (16th–18th centuries) floods and droughts are mentioned, but the authors emphasized their impact on ferries, fords, and food supplies, rather than their frequency, duration, or magnitude (Habib, 1999; Agrawal, 1983). During the Mughal period, one of the most important developments was the construction of canals by harnessing of large rivers in northern India. Some of the examples of the famous canals include nahr-i-faiz or Nahr-i-Behisht (Stream of Paradise) also known as Shah Nahr (royal canal) which provided water to the capital Delhi that was built under the reign of Shah Jahan. Much later, during the colonial era, this unique river basin witnessed the development of one of the most sophisticated irrigation systems in the world. Water management structures such as canals played an important role in the groundwork of British imperial rule in the Indus Basin (Gilmartin, 2015, Naqvi, 2012). Some of the major colonial and postcolonial events in the IRB are the development of infrastructure for water management.

Since the middle of the 18th century, the Indus River has been regulated through organizations and manmade structures such as reservoirs and barrages that were constructed on the main river (Fig. 2). In Pakistan and India, many barrages, canals, and dams were built after the adoption of the famous Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 for the distribution and use of river water between the two countries. These reservoirs, canals, barrages, and dams on both sides of the border are operated for irrigation supplies and hydropower generation. A sophisticated water management system is developed that releases water from these reservoirs through a series of barrages downstream that divert available water to 26 million hectares (mha) of agricultural land in the basin (16 mha in Pakistan and 10 mha in India). As the flow in the river changes during the year, the availability of surface water varies depending on the season. Throughout the IRB, construction of new reservoirs is also in progress or planned for future construction. Fig. 2 lists some of the major events in a chronological order that are associated with the IRB. The chapters by Shahid et al. (Chapter 17) and Akhtar et al. (Chapter 19) provide details on the history of the Indus River water management system during the colonial, postcolonial, and present periods.

Fig. 2 Major chronological events in the Indus River Basin from 1959 to 2008. List of completed water management structures and other historically significant events.

3 Synopsis of This Book

The book is divided into five parts to capture the full breath of water resources and related issues facing the inhabitants of the IRB and the nations in which they reside. These sections include:

1.Part I. Indus River Basin—Past, Present, and Future

2.Part II. Climate-Ecohydrology of Indus River Basin

3.Part III. Water and Food Security of Indus River Basin

4.Part IV. Water Extremes in Indus River Basin

5.Part V. Water Management in Indus River Basin

Summaries for the individual chapters follow, grouped by the major headings.

3.1 Part I—Indus River Basin—Past, Present, and Future

•Water resources modeling and prospective evaluation in the Indus River under present and prospective climate change—Explores the complexity of hydrological processes in the UIB, where much of the water resources of the Pakistani Indus River are produced from seasonal snow and ice melt, and provides a feasible picture of the dynamics of future water resources, under the controls of climate and cryospheric changes. First, based on results from currently available literature and from field campaigns in the area, a data-driven depiction is given of the recent situation in terms of climate, water resources, and cryospheric dynamics, and recent changes there. Then results on recent studies aimed at modeling hydrological processes in the Indus River are provided, including precipitation, snow, and ice dynamics in stream flows, and comments about performance there. According to reference scenarios of reliable sources (e.g., from IPCC ARs), results are presented and commented on concerning predictions (i.e., projections) of climate, runoff, and cryospheric dynamics under future climatic conditions. A template is subsequently provided; this tool is based on the recent literature on glacio-hydrological modeling in high-altitude glacierized areas and subsequent hydrological projections under climate change. Additional, though more limited, attention is given to the issue of extreme floods under future climatic conditions. The template is specifically discussed and commented on based on a recent study in the UIB. The discussion section focuses in part on the need for hydrological monitoring of the area, and examples of hydrological monitoring and network design in the area are provided. Brief conclusions are given on the present and expected future dynamics of water resources in the Indus catchment, as well as the potential for accurate assessment and prediction regarding changing hydrological regimes and adaptation to them.

•Challenges in forecasting water resources of the IRB: Lessons from the analysis and modeling of atmospheric and hydrological processes—For millennia, the Indus Valley Civilization learned how to manage the waters of the Indus River water system. However, climate changes could have unforeseeable impacts on the growing population in the region and could hinder the emerging needs of the energy-food-water nexus for short and long-term decision making. Also, changes in monsoon variability and the timing and amount of snow and glacier melting may lead to extreme events such as droughts over the Asian plains and flooding in the neighboring Himalayas. Although global and regional climate models have advanced our knowledge about future changes in the climate system, there are still uncertainties and knowledge gaps about the precipitation systems associated with Asian summer monsoons and winter and pre-monsoon western disturbances. Hence understanding and using the summer and winter precipitation variabilities and their connection to the hydrological cycle in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region in general and the IRB in particular as the baseline and future timescale is of utmost importance.

•Past and expected future glacier changes in the UIB—Meltwater from glaciers contributes significantly to the runoff of the Indus River, especially during summer months when precipitation in large areas of the basin is very low. This chapter provides a review of the current knowledge of the measured past and projected future glacial changes in the Indus Basin, which covers large parts of the Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and Western Himalaya. Glaciers have been retreating and shrinking since the end of the Little Ice Age. Glacial changes, however, were heterogeneous, and especially in the Karakoram, many glaciers showed irregular behavior with frequent surges. In past years, the glacier mass losses have been relatively small in the Karakoram, while since about the year 2000, mass losses of glaciers in the Western Himalaya have been among the highest in all of High Mountain Asia. The average mass loss of the glaciers in the Indus Basin was approximately 0.2 m w.e. a− 1 during the past decade. Projections of future glacier changes reveal an average ice loss of about 50% by 2100. However, results of the different studies deviate, and the uncertainties are large. The glacier mass loss will at first lead to an increase in runoff, but glacier melting will probably decrease after the middle of this century.

3.2 Part II—Climate-Ecohydrology of Indus River Basin

•Probabilistic precipitation analysis in the Central IRB—Few studies exist on the analysis of precipitation and respective trends during past decades in the Central Indus Basin, Pakistan's principal river system. One reason for the lack of such studies is data scarcity. Modern-era reanalysis products offer the possibility to fill this knowledge gap by delivering simulated precipitation, temperature, and other atmospheric variables over poorly monitored areas. Reanalysis products are derived from atmospheric circulation reforecasts, whereby the models are adjusted by means of sequential data assimilation of past observations. Despite the fact that these products improve progressively, it is essential to post-process the data by performing systematic bias correction and to assess the predictive uncertainty of one or multiple model predictions for specific ground locations. Here we employ six reanalysis products for the Central Indus Basin region with the aim of predicting basin-average precipitation and discussing how the suggested approach can be valuable for water resource studies under conditions of climatic changes.

•Glaciers in the IRB—Glacier melt is essential for sustaining the water demand, food security, and livelihoods of millions of people in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and Himalaya. Information on glacial areas, including elevation range, aspect slope, hypsometry, and debris cover of glaciers, plays a significant role in the assessment and analysis of water availability in river basins. An inventory of glaciers of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region was developed in 2011 using Landsat satellite images of 2005 ± 3 years. According to this inventory, about 3.8% of the Indus Basin within the HKH was found to be glaciated. The Indus Basin all together includes 18,495 glaciers with a total glacier area of 21,192 km². The glaciers range from an elevation of 8566 to 2409 m a.s.l., which is the lowest elevation of all glaciers in the HKH region.

•A review of the projected changes in climate over the Indus Basin—Inhabitants of the IRB are directly or indirectly dependent on water generated from the snow and glacier melt in the upstream part of the basin. The Indus Basin has become increasingly vulnerable due to climate change, as the basin flow is largely derived from snow and glacier melt that are sensitive to changes in climate. Current and future water availability in the basin is therefore important for future planning and management of water resources as well as for preparing effective adaptation measures to cope with changing climate scenarios. This chapter reviews the literature on future climate projections in the Indus Basin based on climate modeling of the region. A majority of the studies reviewed project an increase in temperature, which is more prominent in the higher altitude under high emission scenarios. An increase in precipitation is projected in the UIB, while a decreasing trend is seen for the Lower Indus Basin.

•Analysis of climate change projections for the UIB—Key determinants for the water resources of the UIB are derived largely from cryosphere-dominated hydrological processes that includes mass and energy inputs, which are well indexed by temperature. Because the topographical relief of the UIB—or more precisely the hypsometry, that is, the distribution of surface area with elevation—is one of its defining characteristics, the ability of models to accurately represent the variation of climate inputs with respect to elevation is especially crucial. The variable skill of available climate model outputs at representing these determinants under historical conditions provides important insights for interpreting the likelihood and implications of future climate conditions simulated by these models.

3.3 Part III—Water and Food Security of Indus River Basin

•Transboundary IRB: Potential threats to its integrity—Complex hydrology and the geopolitical nature of the IRB underscore serious threats to the integrity of water resource governance, management, and availability. The agricultural and industrial sectors are the main economic forces in the region. Competition between these users is increasing due to intensive agriculture, population shift to cities, and industrialization. Increasing population, stagnant or reducing agricultural productivity, enhancing industrialization, increasing dependence on groundwater, high risk of climate variability, and unplanned urban growth are harsh realities of the IRB region. The situation has resulted in an alarming reduction in per capita water availability. Moreover, upstream interventions on river systems are severely affecting downstream users. Diminishing fresh water availability, groundwater overdraft, food and nutritional security, and environmental pollution are major challenges and even greater threats. Historically, the transboundary water crises of the region were considered localized with no eminent threat to the global security, but the situation now demands a more comprehensive understanding of water resource issues in a region possessing nuclear arsenals. This chapter explores the threats and vulnerability associated with the international waters of the region. It also reviews studies on recently proposed solutions to the pedagogical dimension of water-related problems encountered in the region. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the future of the IRB for efficient management, equitable distribution, and sustainable use of scarce resources.

•IRB land use/land cover (LULC) and irrigated area mapping—Detailed land use/land cover (LULC) mapping, showing irrigated area categories in the Ganges and Indus River Basins using near-continuous time-series 250-m resolution moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) data are presented. A unique dataset was utilized, including a stack of 46 images, 23 MODIS images each of 2-bands, compiled from MODIS terra images for the years 2013 and 2014. Field-plot data were gathered from 553 precise geographic locations covering about 8000 km in the basins. Spatial information on cropland and irrigated area distribution was restricted by the district-level crop statistics published by the state or national governments in India and Pakistan. Statistics were collected by irrigation and agriculture departments, but there was discrepancy in the irrigated area between departments. Water availability in major command areas varied frequently due to rainfall fluctuations, which leads to inadequate water supply during critical stages of crop growth. The study analyzed MODIS based 16-day normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time-series data acquired for 2013 and 2014 using spectral matching techniques (SMTs). The map output accuracies were evaluated based on independent ground data and compared with sub-national-level statistics. The producer's and user's accuracies of the cropland classes were between 70 and 85%. The overall accuracy and the kappa coefficient estimated for irrigated areas were both 84%.

•Increasing water productivity in agriculture sector—Increasing the productivity of available water resources is central to producing more food, fighting poverty, reducing competition for water, and ensuring that there is enough water for nature. For sustainable water resources management, a better understanding of the linkage between productivity changes and their impact on different users within the same basin is required. Therefore it is imperative to develop common water accounting procedures for analyzing the use, depletion, and productivity of water at the plant, field, irrigation system, and basin scales. This chapter emphasizes the need for measuring water productivity at different scales because different actions are needed to enhance water productivity at each level. It also discusses potential interventions and strategies that can be used to enhance productivity of water at different scales. The successful implementation of these interventions requires more detailed technical and economic analysis to ensure sustainability.

•Hydrological cycle over Indus Basin at monsoon margins: Present and future—Characterizing prevailing precipitation regimes from a comprehensive database of 11 observational datasets, this chapter first analyses the fidelity of 36 state-of-the-art global climate model experiments from the coupled model intercomparison project phase-5, and then presents changes in the surface water budgets from moderate-to-high fidelity experiments under the representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5 for the 21st century. Results suggest that water balance is not closed for 13 experiments while one-fourth of the analyzed experiments do not see the monsoonal precipitation regime at its extreme margins over the Indus Basin. Nevertheless, 14 moderate-to-high fidelity experiments agree on a decreasing water budget for the westerly precipitation regime, which dominates during the spring and over the UIB. In contrast, a moderate agreement suggests a consistent increase in the water budget during the monsoonal precipitation regime over an extended area. Overall water budget changes are small, suggesting a drier UIB but wetter Lower Indus Basin in the future.

3.4 Part IV—Water Extremes in Indus River Basin

•Water resources forecasting within the IRB: A call for comprehensive modeling—The IRB spans four countries, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and China. With a transboundary flow of waters, a comprehensive hydrologic modeling system is needed to capture hydrologic response from headwater regions of major tributaries that significantly impact downstream areas. Rainfall from monsoonal seasons often produces devastating flooding along the Indus River and major tributaries. Synoptic events during winter months deposit snow in the mountainous regions of the Upper IRB, which during the spring and early summer snowmelt season, coupled with glacial melt, fills reservoirs used as water resources. The lack of a comprehensive and robust transboundary hydrologic modeling system complicates flood prediction and warning on the Indus River and its major tributaries. Inadequate hydrologic modeling also presents a major impediment to water resources management, principally for irrigation of croplands and hydropower generation in Pakistan, at monthly, seasonal, annual, and climate timescales. Recent surveys of hydrometeorological monitoring, data transmission, and data archiving in Pakistan show the need for considerable infrastructure modernization and capacity building. These improvements must include greatly improved data analysis, modeling, and training of professional and technical staff at all levels.

•Review of hydrometeorological monitoring and forecasting system for floods in the Indus Basin in Pakistan—Climatic trends in most parts of the world show a significant increase in the amount of rainfall, its intensity, and its frequency. The major catastrophe caused by these trends comes as flooding, which is hard to predict over the mountainous region of the UIB. This chapter outlines the nature of floods in the Indus Basin and its impact. The chapter presents the mechanisms employed for collecting and processing hydrometeorological data in Pakistan that can assist in developing flood forecasts for reducing flood vulnerabilities. It introduces the hydrometeorological observation system established in the basin by various organizations and the technologies that are used for data collection. These include a combination of modern hydrometeorological stations that measure and report information automatically, as well as traditional hydrometeorological stations that record parameters at predetermined intervals using manual gauges. The chapter also describes the models that are used for flood forecasting and the dissemination process to the various users.

•Flood monitoring system for IRB using a distributed hydrologic modeling framework—Hydrometeorological disasters can have devastating, direct impacts on life and property as well as indirect effects on the food security, economy, and livelihood of the communities. The IRB has a high mean annual number of people at risk to floods and landslides produced by storm systems occurring during the monsoon season. Consequently, the development of operational flood monitoring and prediction systems is essential. This chapter looks at the advance flood modeling paradigm that assimilates the hydrometeorological forces, such as quantitative precipitation estimation into physically based numerical modeling for flood hazard assessment. The use of geospatial data from spaceborne sensors and geospatial modeling for hydrologic applications in data-scarce environments are demonstrated. Also discussed is the development of a distributed hydrologic modeling framework with the capability of assimilation of multi-sensor remote sensing data for operational flood forecasting systems. Improvements in IRB flood forecasting should be focused on model parameter estimation, improvements in the spatiotemporal resolution of hydrometeorological data, and development and deployment of an ensemble hydrologic forecasting system.

•Annual flood monitoring of 2010 Indus River flood using synchronized floodwater index—Flood detection algorithms are able to generate near-real-time flood proxy maps on regional and global scales on a daily basis using multiple spaceborne sensors. A new algorithm of annual floodwater change detection is introduced using a hybrid conditional process that is incorporated into the synchronized multiple-floodwater index (SfWI²), a statistic-threshold-based flood detection approach coupled with in-situ hydrological data. SfWI² was applied to the 2010 Indus flood event, a recent extreme flood case, for more accurate flood detection at a transboundary river-basin level and effective emergency response in the early stage of a flood disaster. The resultant flood map shows good agreement between the MODIS-derived flood proxy map and high-resolution satellite images at the representative barrage stations.

3.5 Part V—Water Management in Indus River Basin

•Water management in the Indus Basin in Pakistan: Challenges and opportunities—Out of the total water available in Pakistan, 180 billion cubic meters (BCM) of water is withdrawn from the Indus River system, out of which about 128 BCM is diverted to the distribution system. The second source is the rainfall, with an annual quantum of about 50 BCM, and the third source is groundwater with about 50–60 BCM annual usage. However, an additional 20 BCM of groundwater can be further developed if both surface and groundwater are used and proper planning is done at both basin and local scales. In the past, underuse of groundwater resulted in waterlogging and salinity issues in many areas of the Indus Basin. In contrast, overuse is now triggering groundwater mining, saltwater intrusion, and increased surface salinity. In this chapter, several research manuscripts pertaining to canal water are reviewed and their results highlighted. Similarly, the groundwater in cities is highlighted in terms of reallocation of canal water in areas with high water tables to cities. Likewise, high water table areas are recommended for reallocation of canal water to low water table areas. Canal water reallocation is recommended from north to south and along the watercourse.

•Re-imaging the planning of irrigation and agriculture in the IRB, Punjab, Pakistan—Faced with rapid resource depletion, degradation, and shortages in the IRB in Punjab, Pakistan, the provincial government of Punjab has identified integrated water resources management as the guiding paradigm for achieving efficient, equitable, and environmentally sustainable use of natural resources in the province. However, no clear roadmap exists for how multi-sectoral, integrated resource management and governance can be operationalized. The larger challenge involves growing municipal, industrial, and environmental demands for water, rapidly growing need for food in the populous province, and expanding requirements for energy. This chapter focuses on the most obvious but elusive challenge of integrating irrigation and agriculture in Punjab and explores the essential nexus of water and food. It uses a combination of historical, institutional, and statistical analyses to investigate how integrated food and water planning can be achieved in Punjab. The historical analysis traces how the idea of integration in irrigated agriculture has evolved in Pakistan's colonial history and within the province of Punjab after independence. It reveals that both the Irrigation Department and the Agriculture Department have highlighted the need for vertical and horizontal integration within and between the departments throughout their existence. The institutional analysis explores how planning is currently done within and across the provincial departments of agriculture and irrigation. Finally, the chapter briefly demonstrates the statistical challenges and opportunities of integrating irrigation and agricultural data, which are recorded in different spatial units but which can still have a measure of integration in integrated farm-level data analysis. In conclusion, this chapter uses the idea of boundary spanning to strengthen the mesoscale capacity for integrated irrigation agriculture planning in Punjab.

•Developing groundwater hotspots: An emerging challenge for integrated water resources management in Indus Basin—Groundwater conditions in major cities are reviewed and canal water is recommended for reallocation. Hotspot areas with high water tables are recommended for reallocation of canal water to low water table areas. In Pakistan, on average, the cropping intensity was 102.8%, 110.5%, and 121.7% during 1960, 1972, and 1980, respectively. Now it is operating at about 172% and even higher in certain areas. As a result, groundwater mining, due to higher abstraction rates as compared to the corresponding recharge, is well reported in the literature. With the dramatic increase in the intensity of groundwater exploitation in the past three decades, the policy landscape for Pakistan has changed; that is, the main policy issues now relate to environmental sustainability and welfare. Thus it is important to avoid declining groundwater tables and deteriorating groundwater quality in fresh groundwater areas, and also to ensure equal access to this increasingly important natural resource. Moreover, urbanization is leading to immense pressure on the natural and built environment. Pakistan is an arid and water-scarce country; hence protection and sustainability of aquifers is critical and more so in a populated urban