When India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) last year, attention naturally focused on the diplomatic and legal ramifications of the decision.
However, the more important question may lie elsewhere: what happens when transparency begins to disappear from one of the world’s most successful transboundary water-sharing agreements? The answer can be found in the long-standing controversy surrounding it India’s Kishanganga Hydroelectric Project.
For more than six decades, Treaty of Indus Waters it has survived wars, military crises and repeated periods of hostility between India and Pakistan. Often cited as one of the world’s most enduring water-sharing agreements, the treaty created a framework for managing competing interests over a river system vital to hundreds of millions of people.
Today, however, the challenge facing the treaty extends beyond water sharing itself. It is about increasing transparency, compatibility and strategic value of information in shared river basins.
The controversy has taken on renewed importance following India’s decision to put the treaty on hold April 2025 Pahalgam attack and subsequent hostilities.
While the immediate debate focused on the legal and diplomatic implications of the suspension of the treaty mechanisms, a less examined consequence has been the growing uncertainty around data sharing, project transparency and compliance monitoring.
The move also raised concerns that data sharing obligations and institutional monitoring mechanisms that had long insulated water management from political crises could become increasingly vulnerable to broader bilateral tensions.
Environmental security as national security
In an increasingly water-stressed region, access to timely hydrological information is becoming as important as access to water itself. This change is transforming water data into a strategic resource with implications that extend far beyond a single hydroelectric project.
The debate on environmental flows is often treated as a technical issue. In reality, it is increasingly a matter of security.
of Neelum Valley represents a fragile mountain ecosystem dependent on stable river flows that support biodiversity, agriculture and local livelihoods. Environmental flow requirements exist precisely because river systems perform functions that extend beyond the production of electricity.
Reduced flows can alter aquatic habitats, affect sediment transport, accelerate riverbank erosion, and put additional pressure on communities already adapting to environmental changes. Over time, such disruptions can produce economic and social consequences beyond the immediate project area.
The Indus Basin supports one of the the largest irrigation in the world networks and supports approximately 90% of Pakistan’s food production. Nearly 80% of the country’s cultivated land is directly dependent on waters originating in the basin, while agriculture contributes approximately one-fifth of national GDP and remains a major source of employment and rural livelihoods.
In such circumstances, even relatively small uncertainties in river flows, seasonal discharges or reservoir operation can generate significant economic consequences. This is why disputes over environmental flows can no longer be viewed solely through an engineering lens; they are increasingly at the intersection of environmental security, economic stability and national sustainability.
Transboundary Water Governance Test
of The Kishanganga dispute ultimately raises a larger question about the future of international river management.
The Indus Waters Treaty had long been regarded as a rare example of institutional success in a region otherwise characterized by geopolitical rivalry. Its durability showed that legal frameworks, technical cooperation and dispute resolution mechanisms could survive even as broader political relations deteriorated.
This achievement should not be taken for granted. As climate pressures intensify and water demand increases across Asia, reliance on transboundary river agreements will become increasingly important.
The challenge extends far beyond the Indus basin. from Mekong to Brahmaputragovernments are grappling with the same fundamental issue: how to balance national development objectives with the responsibilities that accompany shared water resources.
Similar disputes over upstream data sharing have emerged along the Mekong River, where downstream Southeast Asian states such as Thailand and Laos have been adversely affected by limited transparency of China’s dam operations, complicating drought management, flood forecasting and agricultural planning.
The real risk is not simply the possibility of reduced river flows. It is the gradual erosion of trust that occurs when information is contested and treaty mechanisms lose credibility. Once confidence in institutional safeguards begins to weaken, technical disputes can quickly escalate into political and strategic conflicts.
The causes of the water war
The Indus Waters Treaty continued because both sides, despite their differences, generally agreed that cooperation remained preferable to confrontation. Maintaining this principle will be essential as the basin enters an era of increasing environmental and geopolitical pressures.
In an era of climate uncertainty, control over hydrological information may be as important as control over the dams themselves. The future of the Indus basin will depend not only on how the water is allocated, but on whether the data needed to verify that allocation remains available.
Once transparency is eroded, trust often follows. In South Asia, where water security, food production and strategic stability are crucially intertwined, this may be the most important risk of all.
Saima Afzal is a scholar specializing in South Asian security, counter-terrorism and wider geopolitical dynamics in the Middle East, Afghanistan and the Indo-Pacific. She is currently a research scholar at the Justus Liebig University, Germany.
