From Himalayas to the Arabsian Sea: Discovering River Indus as a Living Entity in Pakistan
Keywords:
Indus River, Pakistan, Decolonizing, Conflicts, Climate ChangeAbstract
The Indus valley constitutes a cultural and argicultural artery of Pakistan. The Indus River is becoming increasingly unpredictable due to extreme climatic conditions, conflict over water and river water mismanagement, including intensified monsoon rainfall, accelerated glacial metling and variations in Hamalayan snowfall, largely associated wth global warming. These interacting process appear to be amplifiying environmental instability and flood risks thereby threatening the lives of thousands of river-dependent communities. An in depth analysis explores the river system from its origin - tracing historical developments, exmines the impacts of climate change and regional conflict on this water system. The Indus River Basin is significant as it provides livelihood of farmers, fishers and cattle herders to Two major provinces of Punjab and Sindh. Through a post-modernist perspective, this paper conceptualise the Indus River as a Living Entity. This paper reconceptualize the River Indus as a living system and suggests that incorporating communitty-based knoweldge and engagement into river governance may contrbute to the development of more responsive and sustainable climate-adaptive governmental policies.
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