Saturday, December 9, 2023

Central Asians, Recognizing Water-Sharing Arrangements Alone aren’t Enough, Working to Reduce Water Losses Close to Home

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 3 – Since 1991, most efforts to address water shortages in Central Asia have focused on finding a way to ensure that the upstream water-surplus countries, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, release enough water for the downstream water-short ones, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

            But now the water shortage is so great and intensifying with each year, the governments in the region are going beyond that and devoting more attention to improving the use of water within their own borders and preventing the loss of what water they do receive by taking steps to its loss by filtration.

            In this, they have been supported by the international community and its banking system which is providing much of the money to install concrete channels for the water to flow and better irrigation systems so that what water won’t be lost in the course of delivery (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2023-12-03--gotovy-li-strany-centralnoj-azii-reshit-vodno-energeticheskuju-problemu-70193).

            Uzbekistan is taking the lead. President Shavkat Miziyoyev has announced that Tashkent plans to lay concrete in four times as many kilometers of canals in 2024 as it has this year, with some 2500 kilometers of canals being fully concretized by 2025. That will significantly reduce the amount of water now lost by filtration (rus.ozodlik.org/a/32708020.html and dialog.tj/news/uzbekistan-perejdet-na-chrezvychajnyj-rezhim-raboty-po-ekonomii-vody).

            His government has also announced a plan to provide low-cost loans to agriculturalists and industries that want to introduce water-saving technologies.

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