CONFLICT OF INTERESTS BETWEEN HYRDOPOWER ENGINEERING AND IRRIGATION IN CENTRAL ASIA: CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS
Abstract
All the main rivers in Central Asia (CA) are transborder and are used by the region’s countries in several spheres of the economy at the same time, mainly in irrigation and hydropower engineering. The first is traditional and has existed for several millennia, while the second is at the development stage; the first hydropower plants in CA were not built until the middle of last century.
The structure of the water industry existing in CA (both in irrigation and in hydropower engineering) was created during the Soviet era, in conditions of an extensively developing economy. As we know, this economic development path led to serious environmental problems, the most devastating of which was the Aral Sea disaster.
After five independent sovereign states formed in CA in 1991, the situation in the water industry became even more aggravated. The conflict of interests between irrigation, which was well-developed mainly in the countries on the lower reaches of the rivers (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), and hydropower engineering, which primarily concerned the countries located at the heads of the rivers (Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan), acquired interstate significance. Both of these spheres require different water regulation regimes. Hydropower engineering is interested in accumulating water in the summer and using it in the winter (at the peak of the energy shortage), while irrigation, vice versa, requires water to be accumulated in the winter and used in the summer, during the vegetation period.
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See: Agreement among the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic, the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, and the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan on the Use of the Hydropower Resources of the Syr Darya River Basin, Bishkek, 17 March, 1998.
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See: Strengthening Cooperation for Rational and Efficient Use of Water and Energy Resources in Central Asia. Special Programmed for the Economies of Central Asia Project Working Group on Energy and Water Resources. ECE/SCAP, 2004.
See: Osnovnye polozheniia vodnoi strategii basseina Aralskogo moria, Interstate Council on Problems of the Aral Sea, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Alma-Ata, Bishkek, Dushanbe, Ashghabad, Tashkent, 1996.
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See: Osnovnye polozheniia vodnoi strategii basseina Aralskogo moria.
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See: D.M. Mamatkanov, L.V. Bazhanova, V.V. Romanovskiy, Vodnye resursy Kyrgyzstana na sovremennom etape,Ilim Publishers, Bishkek, 2006.
The matter does concern only technical crops grown to obtain profit or for international exchange. It does not obviously entail reducing the production of farm produce, which ensures the countries’ food safety.
See: G. Petrov, «Tajikistan’s Energy Projects: Past, Present, and Future,» Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 5 (29),2004.
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