Growing Water Shortages in Central Asia May Soon Force Evacuation of National Capitals There, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 2 – Water shortages, the result of combined poor water use, loss of water in transit and growing populations may soon force the countries of Central Asia to evacuate their national capitals, according to Sobir Kurbanov and Eldaniz Gusseinov, two regional specialists at Britain’s Nightingale Institute.

            They say that none of the countries is there yet but that all are on a trajectory that will make such a dramatic step necessary unless they take immediate steps to reduce water losses or find ways to get more water to their populations (nightingale-int.com/central-asian-capitals-risk-a-tehran-moment-without-urgent-water-reform/).

            Most water in Central Asia comes from two river systems, both of which are declining in volume because of global warming. And most of the water in the region goes to agriculture where up to 40 percent of the irrigation water “disappears before reaching the fields,” Kurbanov and Gusseinov say.

            As a result, they continue, Central Asia loses more water than it uses and far more than the average of other countries around the world. That means that Central Asian countries “now face growing shortages, deteriorating aquifers, salinized soils and shrinking wetlands.” The death of the Aral Sea is the most visible of the impact of these trends which are now hitting cities.

            Consumption of water in these cities is unsustainably high: In Europe, city residents use on average 144 liters of water a day; but in Central Asia, the consumption is far higher – and in Tashkent in particular, it peaks at 400 liters a day, largely because water use remains unmetered and the population continues to grow.

            This situation has moved from a problem to a crisis because the amount of water flowing from Afghanistan into Central Asia is falling rapidly. When the Afghan dam and canal system is completed, it will divert away from Central Asia roughly a third of the Amu Darya’s flow, good for northern Afghanistan but a disaster for Central Asia.

            Failure to work together and both reduce water use and find new sources “will set off a chain reaction with profound geopolitical consequences. Health problems and poverty will all increase in rural areas, sparking an enormous increase in migration into the major cities and especially the national capitals.

            They call on the countries of the region to take four steps: improve the efficiency of water use, shift away from hydropower, stop high-rise residential construction in the major cities, and “move cement and coal-based industries away from cities to cut pollution.”