Trans-Border Ural River Testing Russian-Kazakhstan Relations

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 4 – The Ural River, which rises in Bashkortostan, flows through Russian oblasts and then into Kazakhstan before emptying into the Caspian, is generating tensions between Moscow and Nur-Sultan because climate change and expanded consumption mean that less water is reaching Kazakhstan than did earlier.

            Indeed, scholars say, water levels in this, the third-longest river in Europe, are falling to historic lows, raising the question as to whether more cities located in its 231,000 square kilometer basin will be forced to look elsewhere for water to supply agriculture, business and populations (ia-centr.ru/experts/lyudmila-kalashnikova/ural-ne-aral-sosedi-ne-dadut-arterii-obmelet/),

            Kazakhstan, a water-short country which relies on water from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Russia, is currently wrestling with a new ecological code intended to address some of its water needs by economizing (cabar.asia/ru/novyj-ekologicheskij-kodeks-kazahstana-ozhidaniya-i-perspektivy/). But no water issue is as politically explosive than that presented by the Ural.

            Downstream flows have declined precipitously in recent decades, something Kazakh experts blame in part on a Russian dam upstream, but that both they and their Russian counterparts say reflects climate change and growing demands for water all along the Ural River’s course.

            What makes managing the flow so difficult, both sides agree, is that 90 percent of the flow reflects not ground waters that remain more or less constant but the amount of snow and its melting in the upper reaches of the watershed. When there is a lot of snow, the flow increases; when there is less, it declines as well.

            An additional problem, both sides say, is that the models for water flow they are compelled to use were developed on the basis of studies conducted between the 1930s and 1950s. Much has changed in the environment since then, but there have not been the major new studies that could provide guidance and resolve differences.

            The two governments have formed a joint commission, but as its meeting last month showed, the group is filled with officials rather than experts and has not accomplished anything of note. As a result, the problem of water flow is still being treated as a political rather than a technical question, making its resolution still more difficult.

            Unless that changes, the Ural River could trigger real disputes, especially if more Kazakhstan cities located along its banks are forced to look elsewhere for potable water because the Ural no longer can supply that. And as such, this river could become like disputes over water among Central Asian states the kind of dispute that ultimately led to the death of the Aral.