ABSTRACT

Water has emerged as a contentious issue between India and China with complex inter-relationships among the social, environmental, economic, and political dimensions of hydrology. As riparian neighbours and the world’s two most populous countries, the waterscape is characterised by familiar challenges in the planning, design, and management of water resources in terms of quantitative, qualitative, and uneven distributions. Global warming, rainfall pattern shifts, and expanding demand have further combined to put pressure on water. There are also worrying signs that the growing water scarcities in India and China, which have amongst the lowest per capita availability of water, present the largest threat to food security. 1 With population increase and corresponding consumption patterns, it is projected that by 2030 the demand for water will be 50 per cent higher in both India and China. 2