Overview
- Latest assessments cite roughly 5.4 million acres inundated, about three million acres of cropland damaged, an estimated 6,000 livestock lost, 800–1,000 deaths, and overall damages exceeding USD 30 billion.
- Analysts point to institutional failures as the core problem, highlighting how reservoirs were full at end-September yet an 8% Rabi shortage was declared, underscoring contested data and outdated operations.
- Agriculture consumes more than 90% of Pakistan’s freshwater, with water‑intensive rice and sugarcane, inefficient flood irrigation, heavy groundwater pumping, and significant ‘virtual water’ losses through exports.
- Pakistan can store roughly 30 days of water compared with about 170 days in India, prompting calls to expand storage, modernize monitoring and forecasting, manage sediment, and repair ageing infrastructure.
- Proposals center on precision irrigation, transparent basin‑wide telemetry, stronger federal‑provincial coordination, and updated treaty practices with regional data‑sharing, as Pakistan flags transboundary risks at the UN Security Council and the World Bank ranks it among six nations where inefficiency collides with intensifying aridity.