Māris kļaviņŠ, azamat azizov, JĀnis zaļoksnis environment, pollution, development: the case of uzbekistan

Figure 3.9. 
Syr Darya floodplain 
(ISS Expedition 
25 crew – NASA Earth 
Observatory)

---

36 
ENVIRONMENT, POLLUTION, DEVELOPMENT:  THE CASE OF UZBEKISTAN
match the natural hydrological borders of the Syr Darya basin and 
were disregarded in the construction process of irrigation canals 
and dams. The costs of water management within the upstream 
SSRs were paid for or subsidized from Soviet central funds and the 
upstream republics received benefits such as the provision of cheap 
fuel, electricity and food supplies
1
.
Major factors influencing water resource management in Uzbeki-
stan and in general in Central Asia are:
1. Freshwater resources in the Central Asia are naturally limited 
and unequally distributed with the region and also seasonally;
2. The water consumption in Central Asia and especially in Uzbeki-
stan is permanently growing, but the water supply amount per 
capita is permanently decreasing;
3. In the region there is a growing human pressures on the water 
quality due to intensive use of agrochemicals, increase of mining 
industry, oil and gas production as well as domestic wastes and 
wastewaters;
4. Global climate change is influencing the water resource avail-
ability already now and most probably much more in future;
5. The approaches used for water resource management largely 
is based on historically accepted approaches and not always do 
con sider recent trends and best practices in the water resource 
management.
The impacts of climate change most probably will significantly 
reduce availability of water resources, especially in periods of most 
intensive irrigation.
The impacts of climate change on the availability of water 
resources can be associated with:
1. General decrease of water resource availability;
2. Increase of air, temperature, thus increase of evaporation, 
reduction of precipitation amount, decrease of glacier volume;
3. Intensification of desertification processes;
4. Increase of risks caused by extreme climate events;
5. Reduction of bioproductivity of natural ecosystems.