Highlighting water management cooperation between Australia and Pakistan

Water management cooperation between Pakistan and Australia was featured at the 4th Karachi International Water Conference. Held every two years, this year the Conference theme was ‘Water-Energy-Food Nexus: Pakistan’s Agenda for the 21st Century’.

The Water-Energy-Food nexus has been a focus of the CSIRO Pakistan team, working through the Australian Government funded Sustainable Development Investment Portfolio (SDIP). Their aim is to support national and provincial scale water planning and policy development.

Team leader, Dr Mobin Ahmad presented at the conference on, ‘Current water management cooperation between Australia and Pakistan’. Through extensive consultations and briefings with relevant water ministries in Pakistan and a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in September 2018, Dr Ahmad and his team have progressed their work.

Key achievements over the past five years have been:

1. Indus River System Model (IRSM) to explore planning options
2. Water Apportionment Accord (WAA) tool for seasonal operations
3. Food security analysis, agricultural production and water use trend analysis
4. Gender and socio-economic analysis
5. Surface water and groundwater quality analysis
6. Capacity building in hydrological data management and research methods in river, irrigation system and gender.

About SDIP

The SDIP Phase 2 aims to improve the integrated management of water, energy and food in the Himalayan river basins, addressing climate risk and the interests of women and girls. It seeks to:

• strengthen practices for regional cooperation
• generate and use critical new knowledge to enhance regional cooperation
• improve the regional enabling environment for private sector engagement.

Find out more about SDIP in CSIRO by visiting our website and the Pakistan page

Access the SDIP publications and Pakistan publications

Find more information about international water research at CSIRO