An Assessment Of Law And Policy Measures For Environmental Protection On Transboundary Waterways In The Aral Basin

Abstract

Water is a precious resource in the Central Asian States of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The origin of water resource management challenges in the region and decline of the Aral Sea can be traced to two key events: massive regional expansion of irrigation projects without consideration of water budgets (particularly from the main river systems, Syr Draya [north] and Amu Draya [south]); and the transition from a centrally-planned economy to a market economy following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Precipitation in the region is low, on the order of 100 mm/year in the desert and steppe areas of the three downstream countries (Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan), rising to 400 mm/year in the two mountainous upstream countries (Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan). The various states share the Aral Basin watershed which culminates in the evapotranspiration-controlled Aral Sea. The Aral Sea was once the world’s fourth largest inland water body; however, it has seen dramatic volumetric decline to about 10% of its 1960 volume, in a situation referred to as the Aral Sea Crisis. An International legal framework has been developed to solve problems of joint management of water of interstate sources, create favourable conditions for solving social and economic problems, and to allow mitigation and stabilization of ecological stresses which originated as a consequence of water resources depletion. A series of projects have been implemented in pursuit of these goals, and this paper assesses whether tools available and utilised in the region are facilitating the desired environmental outcomes.