NOT A SIMPLE PATH A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR CENTRAL ASIA by

Kai Wegerich e-mail: [email protected]

Occasional Paper No 28 Water Issues Study Group School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London February 2001

“It was Moscow, the centre, the Soviet Union … it was the barbaric use of water resources that led to the Aral tragedy.” (Uzbek President Karimov1) Introduction The new millennium opens the possibility to break with the past and to choose a new path for the future, a realistic path leading to a stable environment, an optimistic path focusing the hopes from the disappointing past and present to a vision for the next 25 years. The UNESCO ‘Vision 2025’ presented in The Hague 2000 is this optimistic path for the water management in Central Asia, which hopes to be as much optimistic as realistic in its vision. It is anticipated to save 20 km3 of water annually for the Aral Sea, so that it stabilises at its current size. However, the future is still a child of the past, which is influenced by the mistakes made in the past and dependent on the ‘Gemeinschaft’ in which it is raised. In this paper the positive outlook adopted by UNESCO for the Aral Sea Basin is critically evaluated in context of past and present constraints. The paper is structured in the following sections. The first part will describe the current status of the Aral Sea to give an understanding, what is going to be sustained, which is followed by the goal of the ‘Vision 2025’. The method leading to sustainability is theoretically evaluated through economic and social theory, giving an explanation of necessary social and economic changes, and their constraints. The theory leads also to an explanation to the adopted ‘vision’.

1

quoted in D.R. Smith, ‘Environmental security and shared water resources in post-soviet Central Asia’ (Post-Soviet Geography, Vol. 36, No. 6, 1995 p.365)

A brief survey into the history of cotton production in Central Asia before and during the Russian colonisation, the Soviet Union and the first 10 years of independence serves as an introduction for explanations of the causes for the desiccation of the Aral Sea and leads to an overview into the current situation of the basin. The remaining part analyses independence and land reforms with its consequences for water management and conflict on the international as well as on the local level, finishing with an evaluation of suggested solutions to manage the resource scarcity.

Description of the Aral Sea disaster The Aral Sea is a landlocked lake in Central Asia. In the beginning of the 1960's it was still the fourth largest lake in the world; however, by the beginning of the 1990's the surface area had decreased by half: from 66,085 km2 to approximately 33,500 km2. The lake is today divided into two separate bodies of water. The decline of the Aral Sea influenced the ecological, social and economic structures and systems that were traditionally established in the deltas of the lake. For example, the diminished size and increased salinisation of the lake caused a decline of biodiversity of flora and fauna. One of the immediate consequences was the fading and disappearance of traditional economic structures such as tourism and fishing industry. High unemployment and social migration followed the decline. Consequently, the urbanisation of the autonomous republic Karakalpakstan’s is higher than Tashkent oblast, 48.2 per cent and 43.8 per cent respectively. 2 Furthermore, the dwindling lake was cause for highly polluting dust and salt storms, effecting not only the health of the inhabitants of the Aral Sea deltas, but also communities located throughout the region of the basin. Let’s make the disaster ‘sustainable’ The UNESCO report for Central Asia offers as goal a future scenario, in which 20 km3 of water are annually allocated to the environment, that is to the Aral Sea. The utilisation of more efficient technology in agricultural production is believed to guarantee a saving of the natural resource water. The implementation of technical changes will lead to an average water-use decline.

Possible goals for 2025

Present

Future

Average water use per hectare in cubic metres for wheat, net, Average water use per hectare in cubic metres for rice, net, Average water use per hectare in cubic metres for cotton, net, Water application efficiency in % in the field Efficiency of water distribution to the fields, in % % of irrigated area salinized (middle and highly salinized)

5,000