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The Aral Sea and Other Water Issues in Central Asia
June 27th, 2008
As reported by the Foreign Policy Association, World Bank President and former US diplomat Robert B. Zoellick recently met with President Nazarbayev and the Kazak government to discuss several joint World Bank/Kazak projects. As the article notes: “…another key project that needs to garner not just attention, but action: the disappearing Aral Sea. The Aral […]
Read more »Central Asia: Water Tensions Soon To Boil Over?
June 20th, 2008
From Radio Free Europe, a detailed look at how age-old water problems are bringing tensions to a boil in Central Asia. As the article notes: “…The cities, towns, and villages of western Uzbekistan, and western Central Asia in general, are facing the same hot summer short of water — a cruel fate considering many of these areas […]
Read more »Water Squabbles Irrigate Tensions in Central Asia
June 17th, 2008
Via Reuters, more on water-related tensions in Central Asia: “…Gulbakhor’s despair, shared by millions of Tajiks in this tiny ex-Soviet nation north of Afghanistan, reflects a growing sense of alarm throughout Central Asia where stability depends on the region’s scarcest and most precious commodity: water. From tiny irrigation canals to the powerful Soviet-era hydroelectric plants, […]
Read more »Global Water Geopolitics: Potential Water Woes (and Wars) in Central Asia
January 21st, 2008
As freshwater resources become ever more scarce or polluted, a global crisis in access to clean water is emerging. While this will be most acutely felt in Africa and West Asia, a lack of freshwater is already an economic constraint in major growth markets like China, India, and Indonesia, as well as commercial centers in […]
Read more »The Aral’s Agony: Hydrocarbons (yes); Water Restoration (a drop in the bucket)
January 1st, 2008
A recent report at Energy Daily on the race to exploit Central Asia’s last significant body of water – the Aral Sea – from a hydrocarbon perspective reminded us that the Aral basin is perhaps the planet’s most damaged freshwater resource, a brutal legacy of decades of Soviet centralized planning. Thus, while the Aral’s waters […]
Read more »Geopolitics and Petropolitics Over the Caspian Sea
January 1st, 2008
Via John C. K. Daly at UPI, a very detailed analysis of the Caspian region. While the report is written from the perspective of the search for hydrocarbons, it offers a careful look at some of the very real geopolitical complexities – and long-term environmental & hydrological implications – that may arise over the Caspian […]
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