References

Opportunities exist throughout the region to strengthen water management and prepare for future challenges. Priority areas for policy reform to strengthen regional water management and for establishing robust national water management into the future include: • Improving the coherency of water management systems at all levels (user, sub-basin, basin, sector, national, and regional). Particularly improving the accuracy of annual flow forecasts and absence of long-term forecasts, addressing deviations from agreed water distribution plans, poor water accounting, idle discharges, and the lack of harmonisation between water releases for energy and irrigation needs. • Strengthening the accuracy of water accounting and flow forecasting to overcome issues with flow distribution plans, in particular, reducing deviations from established plans. • strengthening regional cooperation and institutional and legal frameworks by detailing and aligning, where possible, national priorities, understanding the potential benefits that are being foregone due to hampered regional cooperation, finding mutual strengths and focussing on strategic development priorities in the region, and understanding and emulating learnings from past successful regional projects. • employing water conservation techniques as one of the pillars supporting sustainable water management. Particularly in the agricultural sector which is the largest water user. • increasing monitoring and evaluation efforts and collaboration around water use and supply, water quality, and water projects’ impacts and outcomes. Monitoring and evaluation should underpin water information systems in Central Asia. • revising river flow regulation and implementing multiyear regulation as river flow regulation underpins major water management issues within the region. Simultaneously catering to irrigation norms and schedules and energy generation schedules is crucial for balancing both hydropower generation, which supports energy security throughout the region, and agricultural production which supports food security, employment and rural livelihoods. • implementing measures for climate change adaptation which are necessary to increase the adaptability of flow regimes when deviating from normal conditions, cater to changing available water resources, align management to temperature and precipitation shifts, and build resilience against natural disasters. • introducing economic measures for water saving and to leverage more effectiveness in water management, water use efficiency, and encourage sustainability. Properly valuing water and reflecting this value in tariffs is a crucial element of sustainable water management in the future and will support investment in the sector. • increasing the efficacy of international aid and donor programmes to align programmes, reduce duplication of efforts and siloed projects, employ local knowledge to tailor projects to national needs, develop a database of previous projects’ successes and shortcomings, and increase regional cooperation around project implementation. • investing in human resources development to provide the basis for the introduction and implementation of innovative solutions for effective and rational water management. • raising public awareness around the value and importance of water to revive an understanding of water’s importance and value to will aid efforts to achieve water sustainability and development under conditions of water scarcity and climate change and may nurture a new generation that is more aware of scarcity problems and the value of water.

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The balance between the use of water for irrigation and water for energy is central to the water management discussion in Central Asia. Competition between the two sectors makes it difficult to balance while adhering to flow regimes that cater to both needs and incomplete water resource monitoring and evaluation throughout the region, preventing efficient management. The unequal division of water resources between upstream and downstream countries, and the divergence of national priorities, complicates regional cooperation. Improved governance frameworks are needed to mutually compensate water resources during dry and wet periods and to undertake national and regional water monitoring in order to better understand water resource availability and use. They would also offer benefits to improve water management and leverage economic gains, delivering the social and environmental benefits of reliable water

resources management to improve the livelihoods of Central Asian citizens.

This Policy Perspectives discusses recent progress and status of the use of water resources in Central Asia, making recommendations to support the long-term sustainable management of the region’s precious water resources.

This analysis is conducted within the framework of the GREEN Action Task Force for which the OECD serves as a

secretariat.

This policy perspective has been produced with the financial assistance of the government of Germany.

For more information

www.oecd.org/env/outreach/green-action-task-force/