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The tide turns
in Central Asia
René
Cagnat, author of Le milieu des empires (Laffont, Paris, 1981), La rumeur
des steppes (Payot, Paris, 1999) and a book of photos, Visions d’un familier
des steppes (Transboréal, Paris) |
In Kazakhstan, a ship stranded on the dying Aral Sea.
Central Asia
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River flows
Syrdaria
Length: 3,078
km
Source: Confluence of the Naryn and Karadaria rivers in the Tian Shan Mountains
Mouth: Aral Sea
Countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
Population around the basin: 13.4 million
Amudaria
Length: 2,620
km
Source: Confluence of the Vakhsh and Pandj rivers in the Pamir Mountains
Mouth: Aral Sea
Countries: Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
Population around the basin: 15.5 million
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General
inertia and the abundance of water produced by giant Soviet installations have killed
off the art of irrigation learnt over centuries |
Geography,
the Soviet legacy and population growth are forcing the five countries of Central
Asia to cooperate closely in a region where water is still used as a weapon
Last winter, as usual,
I found myself without gas in my apartment in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan,
and I cursed neighbouring Uzbekistan for cutting it off at the worst possible moment.
Once again, I was going to freeze for weeks on end. What I didn’t know was that this
time, Kyrgyzstan was readying to hit back by using “the weapon of water” as never
before.
The Kirghiz simply opened the flood-gates of their dam at Tokhtogul, which supplies
water to both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan via the Syrdaria river. Their excuse was
that they had to feed their hydro-electric power stations to make up for the gas
that had been cut off. But the Kirghiz meant business. The flood-waters swept away
the embankments in Uzbekistan’s Ferghana valley, where people did not expect nearly
so much water in the winter. Further north the river was blocked with ice, so the
surge of water was diverted as it is every winter towards the Aidarkul Basin.
This has been going on for three decades, with more water each year. Greater use
of hydro-electricity in winter means the power stations discharge a lot of waste
water downstream. As a result, the basin, which was once a desert, has turned into
a huge and useless lake that is 200 kilometres long and 30 km wide, and which contains
16 km3 of water that would otherwise have flowed into the Aral Sea, where it is badly
needed.1
Trading
off water and gas
This year’s “revenge” flooding was the biggest ever. It lasted two weeks, yet drew
only a few complaints from the Uzbeks. The Kirghiz replied, tongue in cheek, that
after releasing so much water they could no longer guarantee a supply in the summer.
The response from Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, was swift. Five days later, the two
countries sat down to negotiate. Ten days after that, I had gas in my kitchen again.
The media was pessimistic about the talks. But on July 12, it was announced that
“the water problem has been solved.” The deputy prime ministers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan
and Uzbekistan signed an agreement for the “sensible use of water and energy resources.”
Even though this “understanding” was limited to a year’s duration and was drawn up
by purely technocratic ministries, it opened the door to multilateral exchanges instead
of the previously annual bilateral accords. In exchange for electricity and water
from Kyrgyzstan, the Kazakhs will provide 400,000 tonnes of coal and the Uzbeks an
undisclosed quantity of gas.
But the big event came a few days later. A law published in Bishkek on July 29 about
“the inter-governmental use of water resources, dams and other water-related installations”
took the region into a whole new era. Modelled on the 1992 Dublin Declaration, the
law stated that “water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should
be recognized as an economic good.”
From now on, so long as the Kirghiz can get their neighbours to respect the agreement,
the other countries will have to pay not just for the water–making it a real commercial
product–but also for maintenance of installations and for the hydraulic technology.
If the region’s economic powers react intelligently, there will be a crackdown on
wasting water–a major revolution that could put an end to the sort of Soviet-era
vices that still taint the behaviour of ordinary people.
Absence of meters and availability of free water for irrigation has led to enormous
wastage in both town and country. General inertia and the abundance of water produced
by giant Soviet installations have killed off the art of irrigation learnt over centuries.
When water is provided, it is done so only in huge quantities that harm both vegetation
and people. Parched soil becomes marshland. Thirsty people are soon plagued by mosquitoes.
But nobody complains or criticizes.
The same apathy mixed with irresponsibility–rooted in people’s attitudes for decades–has
produced utterly inadequate installations from one end of the water supply chain
to the other. Water leaks from dams and canals. The much-vaunted Turkmen canal has
no concrete foundation, and so loses as much water in the Karakum Desert it crosses
as it provides for local irrigation. Excess irrigation water is never drained, so
the landscape in Central Asia is dotted with stretches of waste water or marshland,
while at a lower altitude, the starved Aral Sea is slowly dying. But the new law
could put an end to this scandalous history of waste.
A
historic weapon
Will the people of Central Asia rally to support it? Individually yes, collectively
only maybe. But their rulers must realize the danger and take action, or else water
will become a powerful weapon in a region where cities were once swept away because
an enemy–Genghis Khan–diverted rivers towards them, and oases were destroyed because
an invader–Tamerlane–smashed irrigation canals.
After a centuries-long war between the Uzbek emirates of Bukhara and Kokand for control
of the river Zeravshan, the Russians did not manage to seize Bukhara until 1868,
when they had cut off its water supply. The Soviets made things worse first by creating
small mountainous states such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan that had copious amounts
of water, and states that were more powerful or wealthy–Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and
Turkmenistan–but which had less water. A series of dams were then built along the
borders between the two groups of states.
In 1911, about 15 million people lived in Turkestan, a region of central Asia that
includes Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, the southern part of Kazakhstan
and Chinese Xinjiang. Today there are 73 million inhabitants, and the figure could
top 100 million by 2025, imposing an even greater burden on the water supply. The
Aral Sea is still disappearing because of bad water management. One hopes the same
thing will not happen to several endangered oases, such as the one at Bukhara.
The solution lies in closer cooperation between the five Central Asian countries.
Only this can produce the mutual sacrifices needed if the water is to be shared.
1. The Aral Sea
was once fed by two rivers, the Syrdaria and the Amudaria, until major installations
built under Soviet rule diverted them to irrigate cotton plantations. Today the sea
is half its original size and contains only a third of the water it used to. |
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