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Abstract:

The problem of water scarcity is one of the key issues in the Central Asian region for the coming decades. This is due both to climate change, in which there is an increase in temperature due to the so-called global warming, as well as to population growth and economic development in the countries of the region. If in the 1960s the region was inhabited by 24.4 million people, in 2000 about 52 million people, today more than 80 million people live here, with the prospected 100 million people by 2050.

A larger population means more consumption of water and other resources, the production of which also requires large amounts of water. Given that a very significant part of the population of the Central Asian region is engaged in agriculture and there are not enough alternatives to this activity in the region, it is very difficult to solve the problem of water shortage in our countries. The situation is exacerbated due to the outdated infrastructure, watering practices, and absence of environmentally oriented education policies in the region.

To understand the water problems in the region in a complex in this paper we will consider the problem of water availability in the region of Central Asia using the cases of water-rich Kyrgyzstan, and water-deficient Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan as Kyrgyzstan's main water partners. We will ignore Tajikistan and Turkmenistan since the former itself is a major source of water and takes practically nothing from Kyrgyzstan, while the latter is located at a very long distance and the level of water interaction between these two republics is minimal.

Counting that the main dichotomy of relations between upstream nations (Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) and low-stream nations (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan) of the region is in energy and water relations (upstream nations prefer to let water down in winter, when they need to generate more electricity on the hydropower plants, while low stream nations need water at vegetation period, in spring and summer), we will estimate the history of this type of relations, the effects of cooperation and non-cooperation, including economic, social and political risks.

For understanding the prospects of water cooperation in the region we will estimate the current trends and driving forces of regional water cooperation, and the changes in the domestic water policies related to water shortages, making each nation more prone to regional cooperation.