As water is crucial element for all human beings on earth. Due to climate change, water is going to be scarce element on earth. India and Pakistan are two rival states in Asia but on the other hand no-one can negate the importance of water for welfare of population on both sides.
Nice question , waiting for some responses, mine will be biased answer....
Both countries agreed and signed the Indus Water Treaty on September 19, 1960, so there should not be any dispute over water distribution. However, both countries should try to build more reservoirs to store rainwater as well as install treatment plants to recycle used water to meet their ever-increasing needs. They must support each other as do the countries in the EU to overcome their regional problems.
There are other countries in the world that have experienced regional issues and found mechanisms to overcome. Collecting rainfalls and purification systems could be motivated through social treaties as water is an absolute commodity to all human life.
Answers for the human need embedded in political and Nations interest is never easy to deal with.
This is a matter of water security.
There are several strategies that need to be considered for a change in the way things are now and the future forecast of lack of water. Strategies for the short-, mid- and long-term need to be defined and implemented.
Desalinization plants are what I consider short-term strategy, together with a necessary policy to reduce and organize use of water that can be flexibilized as the desalinization plants start to work.
Mid-term are the adoption of nature conservancy and restoration, including adopting green infrastructure. This is a bit of a radical idea, however it can start slow and in different places. Adopting colors of blue and green have environmental and human behavior impacts of better dealing with heat and calmness. Roofs that can be transformed into gardens helps to dissipate the heat. Studies show that places that have reinserted "green (plants)" on grey/urban areas, helps people start to "care" again. As this creates volume, a change on micro-climate will start to be seen - this will collaborate to a long-term solution.
The long-term solution depends on the governments capability to "share" and to change things that were done on the past that may be very difficult because of major profit mechanisms. This includes a review of the life and flow of water that existed before dams and reservoirs. This will also help with decreasing possibilities of disasters. There is a need to "imitate" nature.
In conversations with Brazil there is understanding that the usefulness of dams can be decreased based on the life expectancy of rivers. This impacts the international business of "taking potable water and commercializing it internationally."
Therefore, research is necessary to backup the change on policy and the way many critical infrastructure such as dams, green-infrastructure adoption, strategies for restoring and changing micro-climate, restoring life of rivers and new ordinances for land-use and land-cover. Intelligent use of salt water and pipeline infrastructure for desalinization process and distribution needs to have technology advances and a dissemination and distribution to the people of their Countries.
This is a process that should not be exclusive to these two Countries as it is applicable to all in general, however the cultural specificities that makes it identified needs and optional/chosen solutions unique.
I hope this helps.
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