In the global conversation on sustainability, there is one element that connects nearly every goal, every crisis, and every solution — and that is water. Water is not Goal 6 alone. It is the silent current flowing beneath almost all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Without clean water, we cannot ensure good health. Without reliable irrigation, we cannot end hunger. Without equitable access, we cannot promote gender equality. And without resilient river systems, we cannot build sustainable cities, protect biodiversity, or achieve climate action. Water is the invisible architecture behind development.
It is time we reframed water — not as a finite commodity to be hoarded or contested, but as a shared ecological inheritance. Freshwater must no longer be confined by maps but instead it must be governed with the foresight that it is something we borrow — from the past and for the future. In 2022, the United Nations General Assembly formally recognized the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment (Resolution A/RES/76/300). This milestone affirms what communities across the Global South have always known intuitively: water is not a privilege — it is a right.
For too long, water has been securitized, monetized, and nationalized — claimed by upstream powers at the cost of those downstream. In South Asia, where borders are sharp and trust is shallow, this logic has produced more tension than cooperation. But nature does not obey the logic of geopolitics. Rivers do not pause at border crossings. Glaciers do not melt according to treaties. Nowhere is this truer than in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region — a vast, fragile, and vital mountain system stretching across eight countries: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan. These mountains, rich with glaciers and snowpack, are Asia’s water towers, feeding ten major river systems including the Indus, and Ganges.
Together, these rivers sustain the lives, economies, and ecosystems of over 1.9 billion people downstream — nearly a quarter of humanity. From Kathmandu to Karachi, from Dhaka to Delhi, entire civilizations rely on these waters — for agriculture, energy, drinking supply, sanitation, and industry. In Pakistan alone, the Indus River supports 80% of agriculture and contributes to over 90% of freshwater availability. Yet climate change is disrupting these glacial arteries. According to the ICIMOD 2023 report, HKH glaciers could lose up to 80% of their volume by the end of the century under current emissions trajectories. Over 3,000 glacial lakes have already formed across Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces — posing catastrophic flood risks.
But while the water binds us ecologically, we remain divided politically.
The HKH is a region of shared hydrology but fragmented governance. And this contradiction — of ecological interdependence and institutional isolation — is at the heart of our water insecurity.
The reframing we need is both philosophical and practical as HKH is the fountainhead of Asia’s future. It demands a shift in mindset, from competition to cooperation, from control to coexistence.
The HKH Region: Climate Epicenter, Political Fault Line
To understand the full scale of South Asia’s water crisis, it is vital to recognize that the HKH is not just a mountain range — it is the hydrological engine of Asia. Often referred to as the “Third Pole,” the HKH holds the largest mass of ice and snow outside the Arctic and Antarctic. It contains approximately 54,000 glaciers and sustains ten major river systems. This high-altitude region supplies nearly 1 in 5 people on Earth with freshwater.
Climate change has placed the HKH on an accelerated melt trajectory. Glaciers that once vanishing. According to ICIMOD’s Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment (2019), even if global warming is kept to 1.5°C, the region will lose at least one-third of its glacier volume by the end of the century. If current emissions continue unchecked, up to two-thirds could disappear — a loss that would fundamentally alter Asia’s water map. Compounding this is groundwater depletion. As surface water becomes erratic, communities are drilling deeper into aquifers. But these hidden reserves are vanishing too. According to NASA’s GRACE satellite data, the Indus Basin aquifer is the second most over-stressed in the world, with extraction rates far outpacing recharge.
Meanwhile, South Asia’s population is projected to reach 2.5 billion by 2050, according to the UN. Urban sprawl, industrial growth, and agricultural intensification are stretching water systems to their limit. Major cities in South Asia are already grappling with seasonal water shortages, while rural areas suffer from both drought and flood — sometimes in the same year.
This seasonal volatility has worsened. The South Asian monsoon, which supplies 70–80% of annual rainfall, is becoming increasingly erratic. A 2021 study published in Science Advances confirms a rising trend of “dry spells interspersed with extreme rainfall” — undermining traditional farming patterns and increasing both flood and drought risks.
The ecological disequilibrium is no longer just environmental — it is becoming deeply political. In the absence of shared frameworks, water stress has sharpened tensions:
- Intra-provincial conflicts, such as between Punjab and Sindh in Pakistan over the Indus;
- Cross-border disputes, such as India-Nepal dam projects;
- Ethnic grievances, where marginalized regions perceive water allocations as tools of bargaining chip.
As glaciers melt, aquifers dry, and rivers strain under demand, the HKH is transforming from a natural wonder into a geopolitical fault line — where ecological stress converges with governance fragility.
Fragmented Governance in South Asia’s River Basins
In South Asia, water has long been governed not by the logic of rivers, but by the language of treaties. Chief among these is the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960, brokered by the World Bank. Designed in an era when the climate was different, the IWT was never meant to manage hydrological volatility. It allocates rivers, but it does not govern variability. It resolves infrastructure disputes, but it does not adapt to accelerated snowmelt, shifting monsoon patterns, or collapsing aquifers.
Across the region, the limits of bilateralism are becoming increasingly clear. According to UN-Water’s 2023 Global Water Resources Report, more than 60% of the world’s 286 transboundary river basins lack any formal cooperative management framework — and South Asia is no exception. River systems that flow across political boundaries — the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, and others — are still treated as national assets rather than shared ecological corridors. Consider this:
- India has over 5,200 large dams, many of which affect downstream flows into Pakistan and other countries; or
- Nepal aims to have 12 hydropower with India’s help, but none with a basin-wide ecological oversight mechanism.
This fragmented approach creates two stark para-doxes.
First, although countries are ecologically interdependent, their water governance remains institutionally isolated. Second, while treaties theoretically exist to prevent conflict, the absence of multilateral frameworks makes cooperation appear more politically risky than competition. With no regional water commission or shared hydrometeorological databases, every negotiation becomes a prox for broader geopolitical rivalries.
What South Asia needs is not more treaties of division, but a regional water ethic grounded in ecological realism and legal equity. Such an ethic recognizes that rivers are not divisible commodities, but living systems — and their integrity determines the resilience of everyone along their course.
This shift calls for a reimagining of both mindsets and mechanisms:
- From rivers as boundaries to rivers as shared ecological corridors;
- From zero-sum treaties to adaptive basin-wide agreements;
- From closed-door diplomacy to transparent, inclusive governance — involving scientists, civil society, indigenous knowledge holders, and downstream communities.
The opportunity is clear. As climate change intensifies the risk of drought, displacement, and disaster, the cost of fragmented water governance is not just inefficiency — it is existential. Yet if wisely reimagined, water could become South Asia’s greatest peace dividend: a conduit for regional trust, a platform for climate diplomacy, and the architecture for a shared and sustainable future.
Climate Change as the Great Accelerator
If poor governance is the slow erosion of water security, climate change is its great accelerator — intensifying every vulnerability, compressing timelines, and demanding responses that existing institutions are ill-equipped to deliver.
Climate change does far more than disrupt weather systems. It acts as a risk multiplier, creating cascading shocks across sectors. It destabilizes agricultural productivity, undermines hydropower generation, accelerates glacial melt, and turns once-predictable monsoon patterns into erratic, often violent events. The 2023 IPCC Synthesis Report warns that in South Asia, food production losses due to water scarcity could reach 20–30% by 2050, with ripple effects across food prices, employment, and nutrition.
The 2023 IPCC Synthesis Report warns that in South Asia, food production losses due to water scarcity could reach 20–30% by 2050
At the human level, these disruptions translate into growing livelihood precarity, especially for the 600 million people in South Asia who depend directly on climate-sensitive sectors such as farming, fishing, and herding. Water stress becomes a vector of instability: fueling public health crises due to poor sanitation, triggering forced migration as aquifers dry, and magnifying political tensions over declining river flow.
And because climate change does not respect administrative boundaries, it also tests the limits of national policy and regional coordination. Disasters now routinely spill over borders: floods in northern India surge into Nepal; glacial lake outbursts in Bhutan threaten downstream Assam; droughts in Sindh echo in the food markets of Delhi and Dhaka.
We must build climate intelligence into water systems at every level
The challenge, therefore, is not only technical — it is governance transformation. We must build climate intelligence into water systems at every level. This means:
- Aligning infrastructure investment with projected climate risk, not backward-looking hydrological norms.
- Designing flexible, adaptive treaties that can respond to shifting flows, not just fixed allocations.
- Empowering local communities with early warning systems, nature-based solutions, and resilience-building tools — not just relief after disaster strikes.
- Integrating climate science into diplomacy, so that transboundary negotiations are guided by shared data platforms, joint vulnerability assessments, and a mutual understanding of ecological threats.
The World Resources Institute estimates that by 2030, over half the global population will live in water-stressed regions, many in South Asia. Without systemic reform, climate volatility will overwhelm piecemeal efforts, and today’s adaptation gaps could become tomorrow’s humanitarian crises.
The World Resources Institute estimates that by 2030, over half the global population will live in water-stressed regions, many in South Asia.
At the heart of this transformation lies a simple truth: climate change does not respect sovereignty. It will not pause for constitutional amendments or wait for legislation to catch up. It flows as water does — across borders, through systems, and into every crack of vulnerability.
The future demands not just technical fixes, but political imagination: the courage to govern water not as a finite resource to control, but as a shared risk — and a shared responsibility.
