Environment and Security

Environment and Security / 21

Ferghana / Osh / Khujand

A vital natural resource: water

capita are of the order of 700 cubic metres in Uzbekistan and 200 cubic metres in Turkmenistan. The situation is clearly critical. In contrast the figures for the other coun- tries are 4,000 cubic metres in Kazakhstan, 11,000 cubic metres in Tajikistan, and 10,000 cubic metres in Kyrgyzstan (rounded-up data from WRI, 1998: 305). Hence, the water crisis in Central Asia is currently 17 not a crisis of quantity but of distribution and use . Although Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are the countries furthest upstream in the Aral Sea basin, water withdrawals for these three countries totals 17%. The picture for downstream states (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan) is exactly the opposite. Uzbekistan withdraws 52% of the total, followed by Turk- menistan (20%) and Kazakhstan (10%). The chart shows that water consumption is clearly not balanced. Whereas irrigation was practised for over 2,000 years in the river basin, it was only under Soviet rule that water was diverted from the river on a large scale thanks to an extensive irrigation infrastructure comprising diversion and storage dams, canals, distributaries and pumping sta- tions, enabling irrigated cultivation of cotton, fodder, wheat, fruit and vegetables.

Central Asian context of water management

Agriculture is a mainstay of Central Asia’s economy. With the economic crisis following independence it has become even more important. Agriculture being almost entirely de- pendent on irrigation, access to water is of strategic impor- tance. Two major tributaries – the Naryn and the Kara-Darya – both originating in Kyrgyzstan, join to form the Syr-Darya, one of the two large rivers serving the Aral Sea basin and the key water resource for the whole Ferghana valley. With a length of 2,200 km it originates in the Tien Shan mountain of Kyrgyzstan, passes through Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and South Kazakhstan and flows into the Aral. In principle the mountains of Central Asia are rich in water. Countries may be considered to be suffering from high water-scarcity when their annual per capita water supply is less than 1,000 cubic metres. On this basis the situation in Central Asia varies a great deal between up and downstream countries, and between regions inside individual countries. The annual natural internal renewable water resources per

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