It is time for even bolder initiatives in the Indus River Valley
With new reports of flood-related calamity in Pakistan today, it is time to launch a different sort of international response to the problem in the Indus River Valley. Because as tragic as this disaster that has shattered the lives of perhaps as many as three New York Cities full of people has been, it is ...
With new reports of flood-related calamity in Pakistan today, it is time to launch a different sort of international response to the problem in the Indus River Valley. Because as tragic as this disaster that has shattered the lives of perhaps as many as three New York Cities full of people has been, it is really only a prelude to even greater problems.
With new reports of flood-related calamity in Pakistan today, it is time to launch a different sort of international response to the problem in the Indus River Valley. Because as tragic as this disaster that has shattered the lives of perhaps as many as three New York Cities full of people has been, it is really only a prelude to even greater problems.
On one level, those problems are associated with the ever-present possibility of future floods, a threat that exists because of inadequate flood control infrastructure, flood warning mechanisms, and flood response resources within the country. On another level, as highlighted in Steve Solomon’s insightful August 15 op-ed in the New York Times, perhaps an even greater problem in the years ahead — due to both population growth and melting Himalayan glaciers that might even be a culprit in the current disaster — will be linked to potential water scarcity, droughts, and resulting food shortages in the same region.
But there is a third looming problem, also addressed but not fully explored in Solomon’s piece. That is the problem associated with the fact that the waters of the Indus are shared — which is to say competed for — by Pakistan and India. The less water for irrigation, drinking and energy production in the region, the more likely it is that there is conflict between these two nuclear states. Indeed, despite the ethnic and political tensions that have existed between these countries since Pakistan’s founding, it could well be that water rather than religion or border disputes is the most likely trigger of future fighting, a prospect made deeply unsettling given the arsenal these two massive nations possess.
The U.S. and the international community have responded generously in the wake of the Pakistan flood crisis.