Shavkat Rakhmatullaev

Setting up the agenda for water reforms in Central Asia: Does the nexus approach help?

Instead of re-orienting towards enhancing efficiency, the attention of political economies of the Central Asian States continues to be riveted on increasing resource extraction. Hydraulic mission (engineering water management) maintains its dominating status within water sector reforms of all countries. Forging mutually beneficial regimes for water–energy–agriculture–climate change systems as per the nexus concept requires robust governance and intersectorial coordination. It is historically evident that the Asian countries in question utilized a partial nexus system under the common Soviet centralized economic model. Within the nexus context, the current situation is outlined against the background of the boundary concept, security approach, and systems analyses as well as its holistic melding with the decade-long integrated water resources management efforts in Central Asia. The ability of existing institutional platforms, such as basin councils, to implement a nexus approach to local river catchments, regional watersheds or a national level is examined.

Groundwater resources of Uzbekistan: an environmental and operational overview

As a result of the massive irrigation development during the Soviet Union era and intensive chemization of agriculture, the surface runoff quality has been degraded in this arid and endorheic region. Moreover hydraulically related groundwater has also been affected. Excessive irrigation has lead to land salinization, which now threatens the soil quality of significant areas where crop yields would be at risk in the future. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, institutional changes have been undertaken for the management of natural resources and water infrastructure. At present, underdeveloped and inadequate systems have been practiced with respect to groundwater use and management. This paper analyzes the present extent of groundwater resources with consideration to their reserves, quality evolution, and to technical, institutional and transboundary management practices in Uzbekistan.

Water-Energy-Food-Environmental Nexus in Central Asia: From Transition to Transformation

Central Asian states are undergoing social-political-economic transitions since early 1990s including natural resources management systems. Energy-water-food linkages play a critical role for economic development and shared prosperity. These three resources are tightly interconnected, forming a resource and policy nexus. The regional political economies are still based on increasing resource abstraction instead of its reorientation toward efficiency improvements.