Publication Name

Environment and Security

Ferghana

Osh

Khujand

pendence. In 1993, 1998, 2001 and 2004-2005 Kyrgyzstan

was blamed for releasing too much water from the Toktogul

dam during winter and not enough during summer. Farmers

in Uzbekistan and south Kazakhstan faced irrigation water

shortages in summer. Frozen waterways and canals, unable

to handle the larger volume of water in winter, either caused

flooding of towns such as Kyzyl-Orda in Kazakhstan and of

arable land or wastefully diverted water into the Arnaysay

depression, creating a system of lakes covering 2,000 sq

km and raising the level of groundwater

If we look at the water versus energy equation, Kazakhstan

and Uzbekistan have managed to hammer out agreements

with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to swap fossil fuels for water.

However the terms of trade in water-for-fuel swaps are prob-

lematic prompting recurrent crises over payment for water

or fuel. The question of paying for management and main-

tenance of the parts of the system that benefit more than

one republic has also become a major political issue.

Several interstate bodies have been set up since 1992 to

deal with the issue of water management at a regional level,

including the Interstate Commission for Water Cooperation

with its Syr-Darya and Amu-Darya Water Basin Authorities.

However disputes about water allocations show that inter-

state bodies still cannot solve critical issues, often lacking

the necessary political backing of the highest spheres of

the relevant governments (see Gely and Muller, 2002).

For example although the Aral Sea Basin Programme is

administered by a council of deputy prime ministers, and

the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea is governed

rotatingly by the presidents of the five Central Asian coun-

tries – a solution that should guarantee a high level of po-

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