Table Of ContentEnvironmental Problems of Central Asia and
their Economic, Social and Security Impacts
NATO Science for Peace and Security Series
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Series C:Environmental Security
Environmental Problems of
Central Asia and their Economic,
Social and Security Impacts
Edited by
Jiaguo Qi
Center for Global Change and Earth
Observations and the Department of Geography
Michigan State University
East Lansing
Michigan, U.S.A.
and
Kyle T. Evered
Department of Geography Michigan State University
East Lansing
Michigan, U.S.A.
Published in cooperation with NATO Public Diplomacy Division
Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on
Environmental Problems of Central Asia and their Economic,
Social and Security Impacts
Tashkent, Uzbekistan
1–5 October 2007
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008933945
ISBN 978-1-4020-8959-6 (PB)
ISBN 978-1-4020-8958-9 (HB)
ISBN 978-1-4020-8960 -2 (e-book)
Published by Springer,
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FOREWORD
The Aral Sea that was once a thriving body of water is no more. That sea is
dead. “Long Live the Aral Sea”. What does exist in its place are the Aral
Seas, that is, there are in essence three bodies of water, one of which is
rising (the Little Aral), while the other two, though marginally still con-
nected, continue to decline in level. In 1960 the level of the sea was about
53 m above sea level. By 2006 the level had dropped by 23 to 30 m above
sea level. This was not a scenario generated by a computer model. It was a
process of environmental degradation played out in real life primarily as a
result of human activities. Despite wishes and words to the contrary, it will
take a heroic global effort to save what remains of the Big Aral. It would
even take a degree of sacrifice to restore it to a previous acceptable level.
The setting
There are several countries in the Aral Sea Basin. Most people refer to the
five former Central Asian Republics of the Soviet Union as THE basin
states: Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
However, Afghanistan and Iran are also in the basin, with only 1% on
Iranian soil and an estimated 17% on Afghanistan’s soil. The two major
regional rivers are the Amu Darya (darya is river in the Turkic language)
and the Syr Darya. The former is about twice the size of the latter with the
Amu Darya carrying about 70 km3 per year on average. The Amu Darya
begins in the Pamirs and flows through Tajikistan and Afghanistan before
it starts its decent toward the sea, passing through Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan. The Syr Darya also starts in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and
passes to the sea through a long stretch of Kazakhstan territory. Aralsk in
Kazakhstan and Myunak in Uzbekistan were major fishing ports in the Aral
Sea supporting into the 1960s a fishing sector of about 60,000 workers.
In fact, there is a third major river in Central Asia, the Karakum Canal.
This is in essence a manmade river, much of which is an unlined canal dug
out of the desert sands, the construction of which began in the mid-1950s. It
was designed to bring water to the least populated, most desertified country
of the five Soviet Republics, Turkmenistan. It was over 1,000 km long and
in recent years was extended about 300 additional km by the late president
Niyazov.
The demise of the Aral Sea did not occur overnight, but it did not take
centuries either. It happened in a period of four to five decades. The dis-
cussions about whether to exploit the sea’s waters took a bit longer than
v
vi FOREWORD
did the sea’s recent decline. In 1908 Russian scientists first spoke of tapping
the sea’s waters for “useful” purposes (read that as using the water for
purposes suited to the needs of the Russian Empire). It was in the 1950s that
Soviet leaders decided to sharply expand cotton production in the basin
which required a major increase in diversions from the regions two major
rivers. In that decade plans were developed that, around 1960, put into
practice by the Soviet Politburo in the Kremlin sought to double the amount
of hectares planted for cotton production. It was at about 4 million hectares
then and was planned to go to about 8 million hectares devoted to cotton
production. Hence, the necessity of increasing diversions from the rivers
that fed the sea.
After 1960, increasing amounts of water were diverted from the Amu
Darya and the Syr Darya primarily in order to increase cotton production.
Cotton has been the major crop in Central Asia, as the climate and soils
were perfect for it. The missing ingredient in this equation was water. The
rate at which diversions were made up to the 1950s was apparently below a
threshold of adverse impacts on streamflow into the sea. Aside from its
normal annual, decadal and other time scale fluctuations, human activities
began to impinge on the quantity reaching the sea in the 1950s.
The drying out of the Aral Sea turns out to be a perfect example of a
“creeping” environmental change. These are environmental changes that are
low grade, incremental but cumulative over time for which no obvious
thresholds (step-like or irreversible change) can be identified in advance of
crossing that threshold. Such changes almost always become creeping
environmental problems (or CEPs), if not crises, which then demand the
full attention of policy makers from the local to the national level.
The Aral Sea was once the world’s fourth-largest inland sea. Its surface
area once measured 66,100 km2 (25,521 square miles). Its problems began
in the 1960s and 1970s with the diversion of the main rivers that feed it. By
1987, the Aral Sea had lost about 60% of its volume, its depth had dropped
by 14 m (45 ft), and its salt concentration had doubled, killing the
commercial fishing industry. Wind storms carried toxic dust onto farms a
few hundred kilometers downwind, transporting fine grains of pesticide-
and herbicide-laden dust that had been deposited for decades on the
exposed sea floor. Life expectancies in the districts near the sea are
significantly lower than in surrounding areas. The sea is now a quarter of
the size it was 50 years ago and has broken into several parts, the North
Aral Sea and the South Aral Sea (which is nearly separated in to two parts).
Re-engineering a barrier to separate the Little (North) Aral from the Big
Aral has served to retain water in the North Aral Sea.
FOREWORD vii
The science related to the Aral Sea is actually quite easy to understand,
as complex as its components and their interactions might be. Many studies
over at least half a century have provided researchers with considerable
amounts of data relating to the climate, water and soils. The hydrological
balance is known as are the many ways that settlements have interfered with
or disrupted it. Clearly there is more water leaving the Aral Sea than is
entering it (through land surface and sea water evaporative processes and
water diversion to an adjacent basin).
Cotton has been blamed for the demise of the sea and the poisoning of
the water and agricultural lands. Fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides were
applied to the cotton fields in great amounts, based on the assumption that if
a small amount did some good than a lot would do even greater good for
cotton production. It was revered as a crop and for the high level of pro-
duction in the region. Little political attention was paid, however, to the
environmental costs associated with cotton production. Quotas set in Moscow
drove regional political leaders and collective farm managers to push hard
on the workers to meet the unrealistic quotas, quotas that were often met
only on papers sent back to Moscow. There are now many documented
accounts about how the cotton production statistics were manipulated to
please the Politburo thousands of kilometers away from Central Asia.
To be fair to policy makers, the problems related to the Aral Sea were
not the only ones these leaders had to face. Recall that the sea had been
dropping slowly over time and not changing in notably sharp, step-like
increments. These leaders have had to juggle many issues at the same time.
The issues noted in the following list are meant to be illustrative and are not
presented in order of priority. Under “normal” conditions, the five Central
Asian Basin states (and Afghanistan) operate in a multi-stressed environment.
Diverted streamflow Pesticide & fertilizer use
Declining water quantity Declining water quality
Shortened life expectancy Ethnic conflicts
Rapid sea level drop Contaminated aerosols
Loss of biological productivity Dust storms
Loss of biological diversity Karakum Canal
Loss of wildlife and forests Five competing nations
Islamic fundamentalist threat Terrorist groups
Upstream-downstream issues Authoritarian regimes
Oil & gas haves vs. have-nots Global warming
Hotter summers, colder winters Loss of cultural heritage
Admittedly, it is easy to sit in an armchair far away from Central Asia
and advise the leaders of the Central Asian republics about the need to
break their dependence on cotton or to use water more efficiently. It is also
viii FOREWORD
easy to tell them that they must cooperate on issues related to the efficient
management and use of water resources and related water supply issues.
But to make the needed drastic changes is much easier said than done.
The contributions to this volume represent sincere research efforts to
improve the understanding of how the sustainability of Aral Basin ecosystems,
water resources, soils, and human activities has each been undermined not
precipitously but slowly over time. And, as creeping (slow onset, incremental
but cumulative over time) as has been the widespread degradation through-
out the basin, likely as creeping will be its rehabilitation. Sustained monitoring
of environmental and social change and continued research to identify poten-
tial pathways to rehabilitate local and regional ecosystems and societies are
a necessity if leaders in the region have any hope for long term economic
progress.
Michael Glantz
Boulder, Colorado, June 2008
PREFACE
Central Asia is largely arid and semi-arid and therefore very sensitive to
environmental perturbations. Recent changes in social structures, accom-
panied by regional climate change, have caused substantial environmental
changes leading to security concerns in the region. Water levels in the
major rivers of the region, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya have been reduced
significantly due to overdraws along their courses from intensified irrigation
and industrial use. Soil salinization problems have worsened due to increased
surface evaporation. Snow covers and glaciers have receded due to regional
climate change and thus reduced freshwater supplies to the region. As a
result, the local economy has been significantly impacted to the extent that
the potential for social unrest is a big concern. There is a need to develop
new technologies and adaptation strategies to mitigate these environmental
problems and cope with continued environmental change.
In order to address these issues, regional experts from 13 countries
gathered together for an international workshop sponsored by the NATO
Science for Peace and Security Program in Tashkent, October 1–5, 2007,
to share information about ongoing efforts in the region. Their areas of
expertise included climate science and modeling, land use/cover change,
biogeochemical processes, socioeconomics, resource management, and geo-
spatial technologies. Specific science questions the experts addressed were:
1. What are the emerging environmental and societal issues of the
region?
2. What are the state-of-the-art research methodologies used in address-
ing these issues?
3. What technologies are available to help mitigate the environmental
and societal issues of the region?
4. Finally, what institutional policies should be implemented to miti-
gate the emerging environmental issues?
This book highlights research efforts that address one or more of these
questions using case studies as a demonstration of mitigation and adaptation
strategies for environmental problems in Central Asia. It is hoped that these
studies will serve as examples that can be scaled up and transferred to deci-
sion makers in an effort to implement effective policies and management
practices.
The editors are grateful for the contributions of the authors, both to the
workshop and to this book. We would like to give our sincerest thanks as
well to the dedicated staff members in Uzbekistan who overcame numerous
ix
x PREFACE
logistic challenges to make this workshop possible. Organizational support
for this workshop was provided by the Scientific-Research Department of
Ecology at the National University of Uzbekistan, the Heat Physics Depart-
ment of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences, and the Center for Global Change
and Earth Observations at Michigan State University.
Jiaguo Qi
East Lansing, Michigan, June 2008
