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WATER POLITICS

Via Windows on Eurasia, an interesting report on the geopolitics behind the death of the Aral Sea and the emergence of “the youngest desert in the world, the Aralkum” which, as the article notes, are causing the countries around it to be increasingly drawn into serious conflicts over ever scarcer water resources.

“…as a result of a complex set of political-economic contradictions,” some rooted in the past and others in the actions of the governments of the region, “an entire sea, the Aral, is in the process of disappearing from the map” and is being replaced by “the youngest desert in the world, the Aralkum.”

Throughout its history, Rakhmanov points out, the Aral Sea has been “supported by two rivers, the Syr-darya and the Amu-darya,” which rise in Kyrgzystan and Tajikistan and provide water for Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. But their flows have been significantly reduced both by human actions and by climatic change, and the Aral Sea is dying as a result.
On the one hand, both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, faced with ever more serious energy shortages, have built hydroelectric dams which limit the flow of water downstream. At the same time, the downstream states — and particularly Uzbekistan — as a result of population pressure have developed their cotton plantations which require enormous amounts of water.

And on the other, the region over the last several generations has changed climatically, with less precipitation and more warm days, thus reducing the amount of water that the two river systems have carried to the Aral and increasing the amount of evaporation and filtration along their routes.

…In Soviet times, Moscow mediated among the republics of the region, enforcing water sharing arrangements that slowed this process, Rakhmanov says, but since 1991, the five countries most immediately involved have competed rather than cooperated. And that has made things worse, especially since neither Russia nor international agencies have done much to help.
For the Russian government, the Kyrgyz journalist writes, such ecological questions rank far below economic and geopolitical concerns, and for international agencies, there are relatively few chances to influence the situation given that they are not in a position to push effective pressure on the governments of the countries involved.

Tragically, and in confirmation of Rakhmanov’s analysis, Russian media today reported that Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the three downstream countries, are in the process of creating “a water-energy bloc” against Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the two water surplus states.

To the extent these two blocs in fact emerge – and there is every reason to believe that they will — conflicts over water and energy in Central Asia will intensify, with the Aral Sea and the people living around it being the first victims of this process but, because such ecological changes cannot be localized, far from the last.