ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday urged the international community to recognize water insecurity as a “systemic global risk,” warning that disruptions in shared river basins threaten food security, livelihoods and regional stability, as it criticized India’s handling of transboundary water flows.
The call comes amid heightened tensions after India’s unilateral decision last year to hold the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty “in abeyance,” a move Islamabad says has undermined predictability in river flows and compounded climate-driven vulnerabilities downstream.
“Across regions, water insecurity has become a systemic risk, affecting food production, energy systems, public health, livelihoods and human security,” Pakistan’s Acting Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Usman Jadoon, told a UN policy roundtable on global water stress.
“For Pakistan, this is a lived reality,” he said, describing the country as a climate-vulnerable, lower-riparian state facing floods, droughts, accelerated glacier melt, groundwater depletion and rapid population growth, all of which are placing strain on already stressed water systems.
Jadoon said Pakistan was strengthening water resilience through integrated planning, flood protection, irrigation rehabilitation, groundwater replenishment and ecosystem restoration, including initiatives such as Living Indus and Recharge Pakistan, but warned that domestic measures alone were insufficient.
He noted the Indus River Basin sustains one of the world’s largest contiguous irrigation systems, provides more than 80 percent of Pakistan’s agricultural water needs and supports the livelihoods of over 240 million people.
The Pakistani diplomat said the Indus Waters Treaty had for decades provided a framework for equitable water management, but India’s decision to suspend its operation, followed by unannounced flow disruptions and the withholding of hydrological data, had created an unprecedented challenge for Pakistan’s water security.
Pakistan has said the treaty remains legally binding and does not permit unilateral suspension or modification.
The issue has gained urgency as Pakistan continues to recover from last year’s monsoon floods, which killed more than 1,000 people and devastated farmland in Punjab, the country’s eastern breadbasket, in what officials described as severe riverine flooding.
Last month, Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said Pakistan had observed abrupt variations in river flows from India, creating uncertainty for farmers in Punjab during critical periods of the agricultural cycle.
“As we move toward the 2026 UN Water Conference, Pakistan believes the process must acknowledge water insecurity as a systemic global risk, place cooperation and respect for international water law at the center of shared water governance, and ensure that commitments translate into real protection for vulnerable downstream communities,” Jadoon said.
