• Reservoir carryover falls below 9.5MAF, lowest since 2021
• Wheat crop faces added pressure after estimated shortfall last season
• Irsa technical committee to finalise Rabi water availability, provincial shares
• Three-tier water distribution formula may revive acrimony among traditional rivals Sindh, Punjab
ISLAMABAD: After many years, Pakistan is bracing for a water shortage of around 25 per cent during the Rabi season starting this week, raising concerns about food security next year as wheat is the season’s main crop.
The last Rabi season faced no water shortage, yet the country is estimated to have suffered a wheat shortfall of more than two million tonnes. This forced the government to order imports of one million tonnes, including 750,000 tonnes in the first phase for delivery in November.
Against a production target of 29.7m tonnes and consumption requirements of 31.9m tonnes, the country is estimated to have produced around 27.5m tonnes as farmers faced challenging conditions following changes in wheat policy.
Part of the estimated Rabi water shortage is man-made, owing to the political needs of the coalition government, informed sources told Dawn, adding that more than one million acre feet (MAF) of avoidable water releases were made from reservoirs during the outgoing Kharif season.
The sources said parliamentary interventions had allowed higher discharges to Sindh with commitments for subsequent adjustments in provincial shares, which could not be materialised within the Kharif season.
Total storage in the two major reservoirs peaked at 11.6MAF on Sept 9, when Tarbela remained full at its 5.8MAF capacity between Aug 9 and Sept 9 while Mangla touched 5.733MAF on Sept 9.
Both reservoirs started depleting since then, with total storage falling below 9.5MAF ahead of the Rabi season — the lowest carryover since 2021.
Rabi begins on Oct 1 and generally ends on March 31. Last year, the season started with a healthy carryover of 13MAF in the reservoirs, almost 27pc higher than this year.
Wheat is the largest Rabi crop, while gram, lentil, tobacco, rapeseed, barley and mustard are among the other crops grown during the season.
The sources said Rabi 2024 had started with carryover storage of 10.5MAF and the country faced a water shortage of 15-18pc, while Rabi 2023 began with 11.6MAF. Rabi 2022 started with 9.5MAF, when the country faced a 20-22pc shortage.
Rabi 2021 was the worst among recent years, beginning with 7.42MAF in reservoir storage and resulting in a 28pc shortage.
Against this backdrop, the technical committee of the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) will meet on Monday (today) to finalise water availability estimates and recommend criteria for distribution among the provinces for the Rabi cropping season.
The Irsa Advisory Committee (IAC) has also been tentatively called to meet on Oct 5 to approve provincial water shares on the recommendations of the technical committee.
The anticipated shortages are likely to revive provincial acrimony, particularly between Sindh and Punjab, as Irsa seeks to allocate water under the three-tier formula it uses to manage shortages.
Tarbela Dam reached its maximum conservation level of 1,550 feet on Aug 9 and remained there until Sept 9. Mangla Dam peaked at 1,222 feet on Aug 9 against its maximum conservation level of 1,242 feet.
Flows in the Jhelum River remained weak throughout the Kharif season, while subsequent releases further reduced Mangla’s conservation level.
As a result, Mangla’s storage stood at 5.12MAF on Sunday night against its maximum storage capacity of 7.277MAF. Mangla had reached 1,233.25 feet at the end of Kharif 2023 and 1,224 feet in 2025.
Around 10.33MAF of water has flowed into the sea since the Kharif season began on April 1 against an annual environmental requirement of about 8.2MAF.
Total water requirements for Rabi crops under the Water Apportionment Accord of 1991 are about 37-38MAF. With limited carryover storage from Kharif, water availability is expected to be around 21-22MAF, along with river flows over the next six months.
The accord empowers Irsa to determine the country’s water availability and provincial shares twice a year.
The 1991 water accord works well in rare cases of sufficient annual water availability of 114MAF. However, with shortages exceeding 10pc becoming increasingly common, Irsa has been using a de facto three-tier formula for distributing provincial shares — a mechanism opposed by Sindh, which has been pushing for implementation of Para 2 of the accord.
Irsa has maintained for several years that it cannot change the existing distribution mechanism used to absorb shortages.
Under Para 2 of the 1991 accord, provincial water shares were fixed. However, amid persistent shortages, Irsa, with the involvement of the federal and provincial governments, introduced a cascading distribution mechanism in 2002.
The three-tier formula now combines Para 2, Para 14(a) and historical water use from 1977 to 1982.
Para 14(b) requires that 10 daily uses be adjusted pro rata to correspond with seasonal allocations of different canal systems and form the basis for sharing shortages and surpluses across the country.
Under the three-tier formula, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are exempt from shortages, leaving the shortfall to be shared by Sindh and Punjab.
However, Sindh maintains that it bears a disproportionately larger shortage under this mechanism. The province has argued that Irsa exceeded its mandate by introducing the three-tier formula and devised its own formulas despite Sindh’s objection through a meeting of the provincial committee of ministers.
Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2026
