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River Basins and Cryosphere
The Indus Basin Initiative seeks to build climate resilience across four riparian countries – Afghanistan, China, India, and Pakistan – by improving the current understanding of water resources and related opportunities and challenges.
Improved understanding of the impact of climate and related changes in the cryospheric and cryo-hydrological regimes, leading to better adaptation strategies
Arun Bhakta Shrestha
Programme Coordinator
Our focus
Improved water resource management in mountain areas is essential for the sustainable development of the region and downstream countries. We seek to increase understanding of water resources-related issues in the basin.
We conduct research and exchange knowledge on agricultural water and hazard management. We work to improve understanding of present and future water availability and use in the basin and improved the resilience of riparian communities in the basin.
For this, we have established the Upper Indus Basin Network (UIBN) – a knowledge-sharing platform – and devised mechanisms such as drought monitoring, early flood warning systems, and flood outlooks.
The Indus Basin Initiative’s activities seek to enhance water, food, and energy security in the basin. We integrate a gender perspective into our work, adopting a two-fold approach: gender integration and gender-focused activities.
Our activities are gender-focused and implemented through action research on women’s empowerment through social entrepreneurship. We have established a gender network at the basin scale to influence decision making for gender and social equity.
2016–2020 (supported by Phase II of the Sustainable Development Investment Portfolio (SDIP)); 2013–2016 (under SDIP Phase I)
Actionable proposals for integrated water resource management practices and policies; improved water, food, and energy security; and multi-sectoral collaboration on common challenges
Afghanistan, China, India, and Pakistan
The Initiative conducts research and exchanges knowledge on agricultural water and hazard management. It has improved understanding of present and future water availability and use in the basin and improved the resilience of riparian communities in the basin through drought information and early warning about upstream flood situations.
Featured video
The second round table meeting of the Upper Indus Basin Network - Monitoring Working Group was held at the Pakistan Metrological Department (PMD), Islamabad, on 25 January 2013, with Khalid Mohtadullah as the chair.
News and features
About SDIP
ICIMOD’s investment strategy for engagement for SDIP Phase II focuses on ICIMOD’s River Basins and Cryosphere Regional Programme, covering three major transboundary basins: the Indus, Ganga (Koshi), and Brahmaputra.
Events around the HKH
CBFEWS is an integrated system of tools and plans managed by and for communities, providing real-time flood warnings to reduce flood risks.
A fifth of the world’s population depends on rivers that are born in the HKH. Winding for 3,500 kilometres through remote steppes, terraced farmlands, and crowded cities, the 10 largest Asian river systems form ecological communities that are the homes of 210 million people in the mountains and over 1.3 billion people downstream.
The gender network will be a part of the UIBN and provide inputs to its technical working groups from a gender and social inclusion perspective, ensuring women’s agency in food–water–energy governance.
Foster collaboration
The UIBN is an informal knowledge and research network of national and international researchers working in the upper part of the Indus basin. It aims to foster collaborative research in climate, cryosphere, water, hazards and vulnerability, and adaptation-related issues.
Datasets and science applications
The dataset is part of phenometrics produced using time series MODIS 13 Q1 data throught Timesat algorithms.
The mountain climates of the Indus basin are influenced by the broad global circulation patterns associated with latitude, position in the continental mass, and proximity to oceans.
The Indus basin supports a population of about 215 million people, whose livelihoods are directly or indirectly dependent on it.
Find out which countries, government bodies, institutions, and communities are partnering for this Initiative.
You will find publications produced or related to this Initiative in HimalDoc, our publications repository. These resources include journal articles, books, book chapters, research reports, working papers, brochures, information sheets, and publicity materials, among other products.
We embrace diversity
Both internally and externally, our multicultural staff and partners are our greatest asset. They provide us with a broad perspective across disciplines and offer us localized knowledge like no other.
Related content
Read more about our impactful work in the Indus basin.
