By Muhammad Zulqarnain

Pakistan can improve water-use efficiency and strengthen water governance by drawing lessons from China's large-scale digital telemetry model, but experts say technology will deliver results only if real-time water data is independently verified, transparently shared and trusted by all provinces.

Speaking to Wealth Pakistan, Dr Abida Naurin, Research Associate at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), said China's experience showed that reliable water governance begins with comprehensive and continuous measurement rather than sophisticated analytics alone.

She said China had treated water-data infrastructure as a strategic asset, developing an extensive monitoring network before moving towards advanced modelling and digital decision-making.

"China first closed the raw-data gap at massive scale," she said, pointing to around 53,000 precipitation stations, 25,000 hydrological stations and real-time monitoring covering thousands of small and medium rivers exposed to flood risks.

She said China's national water-use management platform also monitors a large number of water-use points online, enabling authorities to identify excessive withdrawals and unmetered use in real time rather than relying solely on retrospective assessments.

According to Dr Naurin, another important feature of the Chinese model is the development of "digital twin watersheds", which combine live telemetry data, hydrological models and predictive simulations to create virtual representations of river systems.

Such systems allow authorities to assess possible responses to floods, pollution incidents, changes in water flows and engineering interventions before taking action on the ground.

She said China had also accelerated the integration of water data across various government departments into unified digital platforms.

"In China, provincial and municipal platforms increasingly bring together information from water resources, ecological, urban and utility agencies onto shared digital systems," she said.

For Pakistan, Dr Naurin said integrating existing water data could be more immediately useful than attempting to replicate a sophisticated digital twin of the entire Indus Basin at the outset.

A shared real-time platform accessible to the Indus River System Authority (IRSA), Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) and provincial irrigation departments could provide stakeholders with the same information and establish a shared basis for water-management decisions, she said.

However, Dr Naurin said Pakistan's main challenge was not simply access to technology. Previous telemetry initiatives in the Indus Basin had faced calibration disputes and concerns among provinces over the reliability of electronic readings, weakening confidence in the system.

"The technology cannot be separated from the institutional and political question of who verifies the data and who controls it," she said.

She proposed establishing a jointly governed technical mechanism involving IRSA, all four provincial irrigation departments and independent technical representation to verify telemetry data.

Continuous calibration, maintenance and availability of spare equipment should also be treated as permanent requirements rather than one-time activities undertaken when equipment is installed, she said.

Dr Naurin added that Pakistan should first establish a reliable sensor network and an agreed verification mechanism before advancing to high-level analytics and basin-wide digital modelling.

Naseer Memon, Water Governance Expert at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), told Wealth Pakistan that telemetry could improve water-distribution efficiency by making information available transparently and in real time.

"Telemetry can help improve system efficiency through transparent data sharing if the data is kept free from human interference or some neutral organisation manages, monitors and shares this data," he said.

Memon said even advanced digital systems ultimately depended on the institutions and individuals responsible for managing them, making transparency and credibility essential for effective telemetry-based water management.

He said the governance mechanism should therefore be designed in a way that all provinces considered impartial.

According to Memon, all four provinces should be represented in the management of the telemetry system and should receive the same real-time information simultaneously. Such an arrangement could help reduce mistrust among stakeholders and gradually strengthen confidence in water measurements and distribution.

Memon proposed initially piloting the telemetry system on a selected canal or barrage before expanding it more widely.

He said a pilot project could help identify technical, institutional and operational problems while allowing stakeholders to agree on protocols for data collection, monitoring, verification and sharing before wider implementation.

Credit: INP-WealthPk