Water Resources Management in Central Asia

 Introduction
The water-related challenges in Central Asia undoubtedly represent 
a critical issue for the region’s states and the international community 
to address. It has been widely acknowledged that a more efficient water 
resources management is essential to sustainable development of the 
whole region. The November 2008 UNDP “Central Asian regional 
risk assessment” report examines compound crisis phenomena –the situ-
ation in terms of threats to water, energy and food security that took 
place predominately in Tajikistan during the first quarter of 2008. 
“Developments during the second half of 2008 have regrettably shown 
that concerns about the possible repeat and spread of Tajikistan’s com-
pound crisis have not been misplaced” (UNDP, 2008).
Moreover, the 
full effect of the global economic slowdown is yet to hit regional econo-
mies while sustainable development is projected to be slow-moving and 
incremental.
The water management issue in Central Asia has been a substantial 
source of enmity between the riparian neighbors, particularly between 
Tajikistan and Kyrgyz Republic on the one side and Uzbekistan on the 
other, and thus has generated an uneasy political climate in the region. 
It is a complex and difficult situation, with inter- and intra-state ten-
sions over water release regimes and distribution, non-implemented 
barter agreements and payments, an enormous rise in water usage and 
wastage, competing irrigation and energy sectors, increasing water 
shortages, low water levels in the hydropower stations, a deteriorating 
water ecosystem and the still-shrinking Aral Sea. 
The issue at hand is how to tackle complex common management 
problems –environmental and agricultural challenges– while developing 
national water policies –problems that have the potential to generate 
conflicts both within and between states. The regional states have so 
far managed to avoid open conflict and military hostility over water 
issues, with relations remaining tense nonetheless. An effective regional 

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Water resources management in Central Asia
11
Número 25, 2009
cooperation requires the states’ substantial commitment to pave the way 
toward a coherent regional water-management pact to govern long-term 
use of Central Asian water resources. 
Before examining the current situation in the region with respect to 
the management of common water resources and the ways forward, the 
article provides brief background information on the regional water 
challenges, once the Central Asian republics became independent 
nations in 1991.