TITLE: Water and Land Conflict Among theNew States of Central Asia

AUTHOR: Gregory GleasonUniversity of New Mexico

V

THE NATIONAL COUNCILFOR SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN

RESEARCH

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PROJECT INFORMATION:*

CONTRACTOR: University of New Mexico

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Gregory Gleason

COUNCIL CONTRACT NUMBER: 806-13

DATE: November 13, 1992

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The work leading to this report was supported by contract funds provided by the National Council forSoviet and East European Research. The analysis and interpretations contained in the report are those of theauthor.

CONTENTS

Page

Conclusions - Abstract 1

Introduction 2

Collective Action and Independence 6

The Causes and Consequences of the Water Crisis 8

Land Reform 12

Dividing the Waters 17

Opportunities for Influence 20

Appendix: Syrdaria and Amurdaria Water Basins 25

Tables 27

Maps 31

WATER AND LAND CONFLICT AMONG THE NEW STATES OF CENTRAL ASIA1

Gregory GleasonUniversity of New Mexico

Conclusions

* The most serious single water dispute involves the transbasinwater transfer between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan on theupper Amudaria.

* Overt political conflict is most likely between Uzbekistan andKazakhstan.

* Multilateral, bilateral, or 10-based technical assistanceshould be conditioned on prior adoption of a principle ofequitable apportionment of water among the Central Asianstates.

* Revivification of the Aral Sea is implausible and should notbe a policy objective of external parties.

* If created, a comprehensive water management system is apt tobe dominated by one party (Uzbekistan). Such a comprehen-sive management system is unlikely to lead to more efficientuse of water resources.

* The most likely path to economically efficient and environmen-tally responsible outcomes is to separate the management ofthe Amudaria and Syrdaria basins.

* The least expensive and most promising path to solving thearea's problems does not involve direct outside interfer-ence; rather, it involves continuous emphasis on maintainingopen information and promoting open discussion to discourageuse of the water crisis as a pretext for political ambitionsdisguised as nationalism.

Abstract

Decades of agricultural mismanagement in Central Asia haveproduced a situation characterized by farm inefficiency, declin-ing agricultural production, economic corruption, widespreadunderemployment, and environmental degradation. The new statesof Central Asia inherited this Soviet legacy as they becamenominally independent countries in December 1991. Each of thenew states has rhetorically adopted policies directed toward: 1)completing the transition to political independence? 2) managingthe transition to a market-based agricultural economy; and 3)cooperating to remedy the region's environmental degradation. In

1This paper is an analytical summary of a 130 pagereport "Irrigation Rights and Land Tenure in Soviet Asia: ACollective Goods Analysis" copies of which are available from theNational Council upon request [(202) 387-0168].

all three areas, progress during the first year of independencewas minimal. The present analytical brief explains this lack ofprogress in terms of collective action theory. In Central Asia,as in any semi-arid agricultural region, the value of land isclosely tied to the irrigation system. Agricultural reform andreform of the water management system are therefore inextricablylinked. The report describes the current state of the watermanagement system, describes policies directed at land reform,and offers suggestions for achieving desired collective outcomesin the region.

INTRODUCTION

In the closing days of 1991, eleven former Communist Party

officials gathered in a hastily arranged meeting in the old

communist party headquarters in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, to sign a

document that declared an end to the USSR. With the collapse of

the USSR, the "Soviet Socialist Republics" of Central Asia,

became the independent states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajiki-

stan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

During their first year of independence, the Central Asia

successor states discovered that they not only inherited many of

the problems of past mismanagement under the Soviet regime, they

also acquired a variety of daunting new challenges of participa-

tion in international affairs. One of the most illustrative

examples is the case of the political fragmentation of the highly

centralized water management system in Central Asia.

Central Asia's two main river systems, the Syrdaria and the

Amudaria, are responsible for irrigating roughly 75 percent of

Central Asia's agriculture. Each of these rivers flows through

four of the five Central Asian states. As recently as three

decades ago, about forty-five cubic kilometers of water reached

2

the Aral Sea annually. Ambitious agricultural expansion programs

started in the 1950s resulted in the creation of an extensive,

region-wide irrigation system. Irrigation withdrawals put

increasing demands upon the region's water resources throughout

the 1970s. By 1982, the annual inflow to the Aral Sea fell to

nearly zero.

The desiccation of the Aral Sea threatens the local economy,

the ecology of the Aral Sea basin, and may have hydrometerologi-

cal effects on a global scale. While all of the Central Asian

states individually desire to solve the area's common water

problem, their individual actions over the last decade have not

contributed to common solutions. Now that each of the Central

Asian countries has sovereignty over its natural resources, each

finds itself at odds with its neighbors to even a greater extent

than when they were tributary states of the USSR.

The newly independent countries of Central Asia face unique

problems related to their particular types of comparative econom-

ic advantage and natural resource endowments. These countries'

specialization in agricultural commodities and extractive indus-

tries will greatly influence their future economic and political

development. Moreover, their geographical position puts a

particular set of constraints on commerce; they do not have easy

access to foreign markets. But the most important factors in

shaping the future development efforts of these countries will

not be their unique problems, but the more general features of

decolonization and the transition to political independence.

Three historical syndromes of newly emergent countries are

particularly germane to the Central Asian situation. The first

is the problem of economic nationalism. The second is the

security dilemma. The third is competition over transboundary

resources.

A clear example of economic nationalism is provided by the

case of interwar Europe. Between 1919 and 1939, each of the

countries of Western Europe was faced with a series of domestic

problems that each assumed could only be solved by foreign

policies which improved their positions relative to that of their

neighbors' positions. The ensuing proliferation of tariffs,

trade barriers, currency exchange controls, competitive devalua-

tions and, in general, beggar-thy-neighbor policies led to

economic disaster. A direct line may be traced from this cycle

of economic conflict to political conflict and, ultimately, to

violent conflict.

The logic of this form of economic nationalism has a coun-

terpart in strategic theory known as the security dilemma. Some

forty years ago, Professor John Herz observed that groups or

individuals living in an anarchic society act to increase their

security from being attacked, subjugated, or annihilated by other

groups and individuals. But, as these groups or individuals

strive to maintain security from foreign threat, they are driven

to acquire more and more power in order to escape the power of

others. As Herz wrote in World Politics in 1950, "This, in turn,

renders the others more insecure and compels them to prepare for

the worst. Since none can ever feel entirely secure in such a

world of competing units, power competition ensues, and the

vicious circle of security and power accumulation is on."

The third major aspect of the decolonizing situation is

conflict over transboundary resources. The Central Asian irriga-

tion system was designed and previously managed by Moscow plan-

ners. The Amudaria river flows from Afghanistan through Tajiki-

stan, through Uzbekistan, into Turkmenistan, back into Uzbeki-

stan, and then into Karakalpakstan before reaching the Aral Sea.

The Syrdaria flows from Kyrgyzstan and parts of China into

Uzbekistan, through Tajikistan, back into Uzbekistan, and then

flows into Kazakhstan. As long as the water management system

was under the control of Moscow, it may not have contributed to

the efficient use of water, but it did continue to function

without overt conflict among the Soviet republics. With the

transition to political independence, conflicts that were previ-

ously resolvable by Moscow, have acquired the character of

international transboundary conflicts.

The Central Asian water crisis has its source in technical

problems resulting from poor public policy decisions, poor

management practices, and the failure to introduce technologies

that would more efficiently use existing water supplies. But as

Professor Philip Micklin explained in his earlier report on the

Central Asian water situation to the National Council on Soviet

and East European research (Contract 802-09, February 1989),

water management officials in Central Asia are well aware of

means to increase the efficiency of water use through automation,

mechanization, the introduction of new water transportation

equipment, new drainage technologies, the use of different

agronomic practices such as precision field leveling, drip and

sprinkle irrigation, or even through the establishment of a

computerized, high-technology "Central Asian Water Management

Directorate" with the authority to make "optimal" calculations

regarding basin-wide water allocation decisions.

COLLECTIVE ACTION AND INDEPENDENCE

Given the awareness of Central Asians regarding the magni-

tude and implications of the water crisis they face, the key

question facing Central Asia is surely this:

After a decade of intense discussion of Central Asia's waterproblems, why have adequate measures to address the situa-tion not been adopted?

The present report proceeds from the premise that the reason that

these policies have not been adopted is that the various

agents—from the new Presidents, to local Midvodkhoz directors,

to the farmers in the field seeking to irrigate their crops—face

a collective action dilemma which they are not currently prepared

to solve.

A collective action problem is one that involves rational

agents allocating collective goods among themselves. A rational

agent is a value-maximizing actor in the sense that, with respect

to some arrangement of preferences that reflect values, the actor

makes choices in such a way as to maximize (or optimize) expected

outcomes. A collective good is one characterized by two fea-

tures, jointness of supply and excludability. If a good has

physical properties such that the consumption of the good by one

member does not reduce the supply available to other members

(eg., a radio wave) then that good is referred as

jointly-supplied (or non-rivalrous). If a good has physical

properties such that it is not feasible to exclude one party from

the good if other parties are benefiting from the good (eg., the

beam from a lighthouse) , then it is referred to as a

non-excludable good. Pure collective goods are ones that are

both jointly supplied and non-excludable.

Several of the common objectives of the new states of

Central Asia are essentially collective goods. The establishment

and maintenance of regional security; the establishment and

maintenance of rules to form a common agricultural market; and

the maintenance of a regional, inter-state water management

system; are analyzed in this report as collective goods.

The production and distribution of pure collective goods

present societies with special problems. Since individual agents

can neither be excluded from these goods nor does their enjoyment

of the goods diminish the supply to other individuals, rational

agents may tend to shirk responsibilities or to free-ride on the

sacrifice of others. Widespread free-riding and shirking makes

it difficult to supply and distribute these goods equitably and

efficiently. How do rational, self-maximizing parties manage to

provide collective goods? Two classical solution to collective

action dilemmas are "Leviathan" and "uncoordinated individual

action." In the former case, societies conclude that "the only

way" to solve the problem is through the establishment of an

overarching political authority that can intervene to settle all

disputes and allocate all resources. Alternatively, some societ-

ies conclude that the only solution is to "go it alone"; that

actors who hesitate or sacrifice for the collective good will be

disadvantaged by other agents who act preemptively.

The "Soviet experiment" of these past 70 years furnishes

ample empirical evidence why Leviathan does not work. The "go it

alone" approach, however, also holds other, less familiar perils

for the individual actors in Central Asia.

The goal of this report is to answer two questions: Are

there solutions to the problems of land and water reform in

Central Asia that can offer a passage between this Scylla and

Charybdis? Are there ways in which outside actors can influence

this process?

CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE WATER CRISIS

The water crisis in Central Asia is not a crisis of quanti-

ty, it is a crisis of distribution. A general picture of the

surface water situation is given in Table 1 (page 27). An annual

aggregate total of about 117 km3 (or 117 billion m3—1 cubic

kilometer equals 1 billion cubic meters) flows through the

Central Asian water system. In 1987, the flow, at 125.3 km3, was

8

greater than normal. Of the total water available in the Aral

Sea Basin, about 87 percent is used in rural areas, ten percent

is dedicated to industrial use, and about three percent is

consumed in municipal uses.

The pressures exerted by Moscow to expand Central Asian

agriculture in the 1950s required a significant expansion in the

area's vast irrigation system. Although the expansion strategy

resulted in some successes—the Soviet Union emerged for a period

in the early 1970s as the world's largest cotton producer—the

drain on Central Asian regional water supplies exacted a high

cost. Emphasis on cotton and "monsoon crops" such as rice placed

a high demand on irrigation water. Upstream diversion of Central

Asia's rivers for irrigation purposes resulted in progressively

diminishing amounts of water reaching the Aral Sea. Soil salina-

tion, mineral exhaustion, and the accumulation of residue from

agricultural by-products, pesticides, herbicides, and defoliants

seriously disrupted the region's ecological balance. The human

costs of the deterioration of the environment as measured by high

infant mortality and morbidity rates may be attributable in part

to the environmental damage of the exhaustion of the area's water

resources.

For a long period, criticism of the damage being done was

held in check by the nature of the Soviet system and by expecta-

tions of the diversion of water from north-flowing Siberian

rivers to replenish the Aral Sea. Just months after the

Gorbachev administration came to power, however, the river

diversion projects stalled and, a short time later, the plans to

construct a "trans-Siberial canal" were discontinued altogether.

Central Asia's water problems acquired a new urgency.

All analysts agree that the source of the current water

crisis in Central Asia is agricultural irrigation. Irrigation

accounts for about 84 percent of aggregate withdrawals. As the

figures in Table 2 (page 28) illustrate, the most visible conse-

quence of the water quantity crisis is the impending desiccation

of the Aral Sea. These data also suggest the seriousness of the

water quality problem in Central Asia. In general, as water is

consumed in the irrigation process through evapo-transpiration,

the concentration of salts and other dissolved solids remaining

in the water increases. Thus, as a general principle, the

greater the consumptive use upstream, the lower the water quality

downstream.

Water added through irrigation percolates to groundwater

and, even in semi-arid areas, can raise the water table to the

point where it may damage crops by depriving roots of oxygen. As

irrigation in parts of Central Asia was expanded during the 1950s

and 1960s, Central Asian agronomists identified salination and

waterlogging as chief culprits in the low and even declining

yields they were observing by the mid-1970s. Major efforts were

devoted to creating drainage systems to draw off saline water and

other dissolved solids and to rectify waterlogging problems.

However, as data in Table 3 (page 29) suggest, since the

drainage system returned the runoff from drained fields back to

10

the rivers, this practice had the effect of reintroducing the re-

turned salts and other residues to the watercourse, increasing

the concentration of total dissolved solids for all downstream

users. Consequently, many managers assumed that the inexpensive

way to solve the salination problem, as well as the more general

water quality problem, was to isolate the drainage water from the

watercourse by shunting it off into the desert to evaporate. The

result of this practice, of course, was increased waste of water.

Any water management system involves two key components, a

distribution logic and an institutional logic. The distribution

logic is the physical watercourse and the man-made structures

that have become part of it. Physical structures are easily

identified; they include dams, weirs, diversion canals, and so

on. The institutional logic is given by the aggregate sum of

incentives and sanctions related to water use. The institutional

structures are less easy to define. They include political

authority, rules-in-use, management directives, financial incen-

tives and, in general, anything that acts as an incentive or

disincentive on water appropriators. The physical system defines

a distribution logic; the institutional arrangement defines an

institutional logic. A general principle of water management is

that to improve the efficiency of the entire water management

system, either the physical structures or the institutional

structures may be changed, but neither can be changed indepen-

dently of the other. If disjunctions exist between the physical

11

and institutional logic, waste, inefficiency, and cheating can be

expected.

As part of a general governmental reform, the USSR Ministry

of Water Economy was demoted in 1988 to a Ministry of Water

Construction. Two years later, the Ministry of Water Construc-

tion was transformed into a Scientific-Technical Institute. With

the collapse of the USSR in December, 1991, the individual states

of Central Asian became the sole managers of their respective

water situations. This is a historically unparalleled situation

in which the physical logic of a water management system did not

change, but the institutional logic underwent a revolutionary

reorganization.

LAND REFORM

During the first year of independence, political leaders in

all five states of Central Asia committed themselves to liberal-

ization programs. All of these states produced detailed privat-

ization plans and adopted enabling legislation. In all of these

states, the cautious, state-engineered privatization that began

in the service sector is spreading into the industrial sector.

At the same time, the leaders of all these states also announced

intentions of instituting agricultural land reform. But by

November 1992, a full year after political independence, no

comprehensive plans, no detailed programs, and no firm agendas on

agricultural land privatization have been announced. No legisla-

tion that would enable comprehensive land reform has been adopt-

12

ed. There is no serious parliamentary discussion of the timetable

of land reform.

Central Asians explain the reluctance to press forward in

de-collectivization by pointing to a number of factors. First,

they assert that privatization is not consistent with Central

Asian traditional culture. Second, they say that privatization

would lead to exploitive use of farmland by settler farmers who

would exhaust the land, sell it or abandon it, and then move on.

Third, they say that privatization would undercut the existing

farm networks and violate the interests of collective and state

farm managers. But the fourth reason appears to be the decisive

one: if pressed further on the sources of the hesitance to

privatize farm land, many Central Asians say that privatization,

however it might be accomplished, would leave the best lands in

the hands of the most powerful ethnic groups and would leave the

least desirable land in the hands of the least powerful.

The Central Asian situation contrasts with that of Russia

and many of the other Soviet successor states. In Russia, land

reform has been stalled by continuous political contests between

the beneficiaries of the old rural order who oppose privatization

and the predominantly urban proponents of market-oriented reform

who favor it. In Central Asia, land reform has encountered

similar political obstacles; but is the specter of ethnic con-

flict that has brought land reform to its present impasse.

A devolutionary trend in land law started with an all-union

law passed in Moscow in February 1990. The following summer,

13

republican level land laws were passed in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. By the end of 1990, all of the Central

Asian republics had passed sovereignty declarations. By the end

of 1991, most of the republics countries had passed legislation

on "de-statification." But the land laws that were adopted in

the Asian republics in 1990 and 1991 were adopted in anticipation

of incremental political devolution, not political independence.

Consequently in all the Central Asian countries, the issue of new

land laws—and genuine land reform—was raised again in 1992.

The first nine months of 1992 witnessed the emergence of

different trajectories on the part of the new states. Kyrgyz-

stan, for instance, embarked enthusiastically on a privatization

program with an emphasis on supporting user rights rather than

private property rights. The user rights approach has resulted

in some considerable distribution of land, but has not addressed

the knotty problems of coordination of private management of the

land with public management of the water. At an impasse over

this issue, high-value irrigated land has not been distributed.

Turkmenistan, in contrast, adopted a new constitution which

explicitly provided for private ownership in principle, but has

instituted policies which make it virtually impossible for anyone

to own in practice.

The privatization program in Kyrgyzstan illustrates what can

go wrong. As an early adherent of the liberalization course,

Kyrgystan was the first to start the decontrol of prices. Yet

this did not lead to increased production as the market model

14

suggested it should have; instead it triggered a doubling of

prices for many commodities. In the spring, the Kyrgyz govern-

ment, striving to relieve what it assumed was the temporary pain

of shock therapy, increased social expenditures, resulting in a

ballooning budget deficit. To salvage the situation, the govern-

ment sought during the summer to regulate exports and imports to

improve its trade balance. Kyrgystan, was thus pressured by the

situation into protectionism.

Land reform is never merely a policy of incremental redis-

tribution; it is a revolutionary undertaking that transfers

power, prestige and the potential for future profit from one

group to another. In all newly emergent states, land reform

offers an opportunity to address fundamental social inequities.

At the same time, it offers an opportunity to local elites to

enhance their power and develop patronage networks. Central

Asian leaders are aware of the economic promise of successful

land reform. They are even more conscious of the threat that

dissatisfaction in the rural areas will spill over into political

activism. Confronted by the threat of nationalist conflict over

privatization, they have opted in favor of the state control of

agricultural land with limited leases to private individuals and

collectives. This half-measure keeps the control over land in

the hands of the state elite. It provides the elite with an

illusion of control over the social and political processes in

the rural areas. It may satisfy the objections of pastoralists

that private property is culturally foreign to Central Asia's

15

history. It allows the state to determine which ethnic group

will prosper at the expense of which other. What it does not do

is return the land to the tiller.

If the Central Asian countries maintain state ownership of

agricultural land and the associated costs of water management

and supply, it will be difficult for them to assess the true

production costs of agricultural goods. The prospect of

state-subsidized agricultural goods being sold outside the

country at a profit by private entrepreneurs will discourage them

from seeking the gains that can be expected from an open market

with individual agents each exploiting comparative advantages.

Since no single country can be expected to act unilaterally and

in isolation to reduce its subsidies and trade restrictions and

permit more liberal trade for fear of flooding of its market with

its neighbors' highly subsidized farm products, no one country

can be expected to bear the costs of structural adjustment.

Indeed, in 1992, each of the Central Asian countries took mea-

sures to prevent the private export of agricultural goods outside

of the country.

State-subsidized agriculture without private land ownership

will position the new states as the key agents in subsequent

efforts to develop agricultural exports and to lower agricultural

production costs. For upstream states, the cost of water will be

one of the few easily managed inputs. The upstream states

(Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and, in a relative sense, Uzbekistan)

16

therefore will have few incentives to compromise in water negoti-

ations .

DIVIDING THE WATERS

The most common strategy for solving collective action

problems is to form an "association" or "interest group" that

encourages exchange in asymmetrical situations and that imposes

sanctions to limit free-riding, opportunism, and zero-sum compe-

titive conflict when the asymmetries do not exist. Such an

"association" must satisfy four requirements. First, it must

increase the costs of opportunism or free-riding. Second, it

must make available the benefits of cooperation. Third, it must

increase the information available for mutually advantageous

"side deals." And, fourth, it must provide for credible commit-

ment of all parties. In the particular case of Central Asian

water management, how can all of these requirements be satisfied?

To answer this question, we consider the principal parameters of

the water conflicts in terms of the preferences and interests of

the water users.

The first step in reaching a solution to the water manage-

ment problems is to disaggregate the problems. The main problems

associated with the main water courses of the Amudaria and

Syrdaria basins are the following:2

1) Upstream-downstream water quantity issue

a description of the Amudaria and Syrdaria water basinssee Appendix, page 25.

17

2) Upstream-downstream water quality issue

3) Competing uses within the basins

4) The emergence of five watermasters in lieu of one

The upstream-downstream water quantity issue divides the

states into two groups: Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are suppliers,

the remaining states are consumers. The upstream-downstream

water quality issues divides suppliers and consumers into these

same two groups. The competing uses within the basin divides

industrial users from agricultural users. Particularly at the

tailwaters of the two rivers, municipal users are also an impor-

tant competing group, given the low quality of the water at these

points. The emergence of five watermasters in Central Asia

divides the technical community and places in the hands of the

leadership of the new states the right to make independent

decisions.

The most promising paths toward solution or management of

the conflicts may be seen with respect to each of the main

problems. The fact that there are different groups with differ-

ent interests suggests the possibility of asymmetry and thus

complementarity. That is, the fact that interests differ among

certain groups and thus preferences may differ, suggests that

there may be mutually beneficial tradeoffs among the groups.

What are these tradeoffs?

With respect to the problems of water quantity,

upstream-downstream user groups have complementary interests.

Kyrgyzstan, after all, cannot keep the water. (Although they

18

could divert substantial flows to Kazakhstan to the detriment of

Uzbekistan) . The tradeoffs suggest the importance of tying

economic benefits associated with hydroelectric power to the

interests of agriculture. The upstream users would thus have an

interest in optimally managing water flow for agricultural

purposes. Such an association would of course diminish state

sovereignty.

With respect to the problems of water quality,

upstream-downstream differences between head users and tail users

are not salient. Differences between mid-stream users and tail

users are salient as are downstream-downstream differences among

the states. However, since most mid-stream differences involve

conflicts within individual states, the greatest potential for

interstate conflict is between Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turk-

menistan .

With respect to the competing users (municipal, agricultural

or industrial), the most important conflicts are within indivi-

dual states.

With respect to the emergence of five separate watermasters,

the most serious problem is opportunism. If negotiated inter-

state compacts can be reached regarding the volume, quantity, and

timing of interstate water transfers, the internal management of

the system can more efficiently be operated by five than by one

Watermaster.

The fundamental principle of the international law of

transboundary resources is the doctrine of equitable apportion-

19

ment. This doctrine holds that each co-riparian is entitled to

an equitable share of the uses of water of a river system. In

practice, the principle often has a number of corollaries: first,

no one party is entitled to all of the waters of a transboundary

river system; second, a transboundary river system must be

equitably shared by all co-riparians; and third, no one party can

unilaterally determine its share. A companion principle often

recognized in international law is the doctrine of prescription.

In English Common Law, prescription holds that long possession

may operate to confirm the existence of a title, even if the

origin of the title cannot be shown.

Neither the doctrine of equitable apportionment nor the

doctrine of prescription can mechanically be used to derive the

ideal division of the waters among the new states of Central

Asia. This will have to be done in a process of negotiation, a

process which outside actors have the opportunity—and perhaps

the obligation—to influence.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR INFLUENCE

The water issue has become highly politicized in Central

Asia. It is now serving as one of the rallying points for

nascent political parties and social movements such as "The

Committee to Save the Aral Sea." Some observers feel that the

water issue will continue to focus attention on the importance of

changing the crop structure, reorganizing the irrigation system,

or developing an effective large-scale regional effort at envi-

20

ronmental regeneration with the Aral Sea at the center. Other

observers, however, note that the political leadership still

supports cotton cultivation because of its potential for earning

hard currency. Moreover, these observers note that the former

Soviet Union is awash in environmental catastrophes, many of

which are more urgent that the Aral Sea problem. Some, indeed,

assert that the Aral Sea is already lost and should be abandoned

in favor of causes and projects which offer greater promise of

success.

It should be noted that the public movements of the last

four years which emphasized the water problem were stressing a

dispute between center and periphery, that is, in a sense, a

dispute between "Moscow and Tashkent." Now that the Central

Asian countries find themselves at odds with one another, the

dynamics of the public protest can be expected to change. Unless

the water problem is linked to other broader social issues such

as unemployment and economic development, or unless it is linked

to symbolic issues such as historical border disputes, the water

issue is apt to remain an underlying irritant rather than a cause

of overt conflict. The water problem, however, may provide

opportunities for extremist political figures who seek to mobi-

lize public resentment in support of antagonistic or aggressive

foreign policies.

If the foregoing analysis of the water problem and the

impact of the water problem on the inter-state political dynamics

of the region is accurate, it suggests five important consider-

21

ations to be borne in mind by external actors regarding the

effects of water conflict on inter-state relations in Central

Asia:

1) Both development assistance and humanitarian assistance,whether bilateral or from international organizations,should be conditioned on the prior establishment of a prin-ciple of equitable apportionment between the newly emergentstates. Analysis of the negotiated agreements regarding therivers of the American southwest and the rivers of theMiddle East would be particularly appropriate.

2) The most serious disagreements over the apportionment ofwater are apt to be among the downstream consumer states, inparticular, between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and betweenUzbekistan and Kazakhstan. A sufficient degree of asymmetryof interests exists between upstream and downstream users topresent possibilities of complementary exchanges.

3) The most promising solution to the water allocationwould be to form two entirely separate and autonomous watermanagement districts for the Amudaria and the Syrdaria.These districts would unite the interests of the agricul-tural irrigators and the interests of hydroelectric powergeneration. This would eliminate the threat of Uzbek domination. It would link upstream and downstream users. Itwould provide both a financial basis for maintenance of theirrigation system and assure that water emphasized agricul-tural uses. These transnational districts would necessarilyreduce state sovereignty in some measure.

4) Water pricing is an important instrument in encouragingwater conservation. But this is not high on the agenda ofany Central Asian leader. Water management systems are, asCentral Asian officials point out, examples of naturalmonopolies. It is unlikely that water pricing will play anyimportant role in the resolution of the Central Asian watercrisis in the foreseeable future.

5) The Central Asians are laboring at an information disad-vantage. Efforts should be made to increase their awarenessthat principals in such a collective action problem rarelysolve the problem acting without outside mediation. Thewater management problems faced in Central Asia are notunique; but successful formulas for solving the problems maybe. The Central Asians should be encouraged to see theirsituation in comparative terms. The chief lesson of collec-tive action theory is that the potential for conflict, ifproperly understood, is an invitation to cooperation.

22

States seldom fight over water disputes alone. However,

since water can be a major factor in determining the productivity

of agriculture in arid regions, water itself sometimes becomes

the root cause of inter-regional competition over economic

development strategies. A water crisis imposes constraints upon

farm incomes, rural employment, and agricultural export opportu-

nities. Water disputes thus frequently act as a constraint upon

states' development strategies.

In the absence of asymmetries that could lead to complemen-

tary exchanges, competitive development strategies can lead

states into overt conflict with one another. The problem,

therefore, is not so much water scarcity as what water scarcity

implies for the choice of development strategy. For instance,

water disputes may force Uzbekistan to feel an obligation to

retaliate against Turkmenistan's water diversion at the Karakum

Canal (a diversion totaling approximately 25 percent of high

season Amudaria flow) as a component of a successful regional

development strategy for the tailwater regions of Uzbekistan.

Alternatively, if presumed inequities in interregional

distribution are adopted as a cause celebre and local leaders

transform the water scarcity into a matter of "national surviv-

al," the water crisis could easily become a pretext for divisive

and potentially violent political change in Central Asia. At

present, even given the political vortex in Tajikistan, the

"Yugoslav variant" is still avoidable in Central Asia.

23

As in the case of any collective action problem, opportunis-

tic action on the part of a single state acting independently,

might improve its position unless—as is most likely—the other

states would retaliate by cheating. In which case, all states

would find themselves saddled with the undesirable outcomes in

the form of even greater destruction of wealth and natural

resources. In this instance, the range of choices of any state

would be significantly narrower than they are now. They would

very likely look for "miracle" solutions, charismatic leadership,

or scapegoats. The Yugoslav variant offers them an object lesson

in the costs of failure.

24

Appendix: Land and Water Conflict in Central Asia

The Svrdaria Basin

The Syrdaria is the second largest river in Central Asia with an average annual flow of 51.7 km3 in1987. The Syrdaria is primarily a glacier-fed river. The Syrdaria begins at the confluence of theNaryn and Karadaria rivers in the Fergana valley of eastern Uzbekistan. The Syrdaria is fed fromnumerous streams high in Kyrgyzstan, flows down the center of the Fergana valley, flows through apanhandle of Tajikistan at the mouth of the Fergana valley, flows back into Uzbekistan, and thenturns north before flowing into Kazakhstan on its way to the Aral Sea. In previous years, the Syrdariareached its maximum flow (23 km3 per year) at the Kokbulak measuring station just below theconfluence of the Syrdaria and Chardara rivers. More recently, however, upstream draws havediminished the amount of water reaching the Kokbulak station and, for more than a decade, the watersof the Syrdaria were exhausted before reaching the Aral Sea. The total area irrigated by the waters ofthe Syrdaria is about 2.5 million hectares.

The Fergana valley is the most important irrigated agricultural area in Central Asia. Roughlyequivalent in size to the American state of New Jersey, the Fergana valley is virtually landlocked byKyrgyzstan on the north, east and south, and by Tajikistan's Leninabad veliat (oblast) on the west.Only a narrow mountainous section of Uzbekistan—with only one paved road—links the valley to thebulk of the republic lying to the west. Irrigation in the valley is managed by a complex system ofinterlocking canals. Since there is great variability in stream flow in the various tributaries, theinterlocking canal system allows for flexible distribution of water without requiring numerousreservoirs within the valley. The largest section of the canal system, the "Yusmon Yusupov Canal"(or "Great Fergana Canal") is 270 km long. Some elements of the canal system are ancient. Parts ofthe Sharikhan canal on the Karadaria river, for instance, is said to be two thousand years old.

On leaving the Fergana valley, a substantial amount of the Syrdaria' s flow is diverted to thewest near the city of Bekabad. The diversion was begun in 1942 with an ambitious war-time landexpansion program that was to supply irrigation water into an arid plateau to the west of the FerganaValley called the Hungry Steppe. Eventually, a water management system, called the FarkhadHydrotechnical Complex, was given the authority by a government and party joint resolution in 1975to bring into production an additional 547 thousand hectares (500 thousand desiatines) in the area.The Farkhad complex was later extended to carry water further to the west to the Jizaq (Dzhizak)Steppe. (Sharaf Rashidov, who led the Uzbek communist party from 1959 until his death in 1983,was a native of Jizaq).

The Amudaria Basin

The Amudaria is the largest river in Central Asia with an annual flow of 71.1 km3 in 1987. TheAmudaria is primarily a glacier-fed river. The Amudaria forms from the confluence of the Piandzhand Vakhsh in eastern Tajikistan. The Piandzh flows along the Tajik-Afghanistan frontier. Themountains in this region are high. The river banks are steep and, consequently, irrigated agriculturewas not traditional in this area. In 1930, work was begun on the Vakhsh Irrigation System in theKurgan-Tiube region, a system that remains primarily local in significance today. After leavingKurgan-Tiube, the Amudaria flows out of Tajikistan into Uzbekistan. Just below this point, theKafirnigan and Surkhandaria rivers join the Amudaria from the south slope of the Gissar range. TheSurkhandar valley in Uzbekistan, located at the southern reaches of the country, has a relatively longgrowing season. High-value long staple cotton is grown here.

The Amudaria flows through the southern extension of Uzbekistan and then turns northwardinto Turkmenistan. The most politically significant water diversions in Central Asia take place justabove the town of Kerki in Turkmenistan. At the Kerki pumping station, water is drawn off and sentnorthward over a low ridge of mountains, with a vertical lift is 130 meters, to the Karshin basin.Also water is drawn off at the Kerki diversion station and sent westward to southern Turkmenistan

25

through the Karakum canal. The annual average flow of the Amudaria at Kerki is 62.7 km3. Thediversion at the mouth of Karakum Canal reaches 500 m3/sec in the summer months. The annualdraw of the diversion is 8.5 km3.

Once it has left the Kerki pumping and diversion stations, the Amudaria meanders northwardand westward for about 900 km across the Karakum and Kyzylkum deserts on its way to the Aral Sea.Ambient temperatures, slow surface flow and bed filtration account for an annual loss of about 5 km3.The Amudaria is heavily used in the lower reaches for irrigation purposes. It flows through numerouspolitical jurisdictions, passing through the Chardzhou veliat of Turkmenistan before entering theKhorezm veliat of Uzbekistan, flowing back into the Dashauvuz (Tashauz) veliat of Turkmenistan,and then continuing into the Karakalpak Republic on its way to the Aral Sea. Rapid deterioration inground water quality in the 1960s persuaded planners to undertake an extensive construction project todevelop parallel drainage systems along the main course of the Amudaria. In 1982, the flow into theAral Sea fell to zero. In 1992, however, because of heavy rains and an untimely spill from the Nurekdam due to political turmoil in Tajikistan, the flow into the Aral Sea is expected to be exceptionallylarge; reported estimates for the year are as high as 20 km3.

Agriculture in southern Turkmenistan is supported by the Karakum canal. Construction on thecanal was begun in 1962. The original goal was to take irrigation water across the full length ofTurkmenistan to the Caspian Sea. Currently, the water flows past Ashgabat to at least Kyzyl-Arvat,but it has not reached the Caspian. Although the issue is not resolved, plans appear to have changednow to shunt the canal to the south around Kazandzhik toward the sub-tropical growing area inTurkmenistan along the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. The Amudaria's waters carried by theKarakum canal are linked to the rivers of the Kopetdag range, the Murgab, the Tedzhen, and anumber of seasonal streams. Each of these Kopetdag spring-fed and snow-melt rivers has a series ofsmall holding reservoirs.

The Kashkadaria river is a primarily a snow-fed, terminal river and has separate sources fromthe Amudaria, but is nevertheless considered part of the same drainage basin. The Kashkadar valleyopens out into the Karshin Steppe, an area of 1 million hectares of arable land. Because of a scarcityof water, much of this region is dry-farmed. Another snow-fed, terminal river in the basin that alsohas a separate source is the Zarafshan. The waters from the Zarafshan are used in the ancient cities ofSamarkand and Bukhara and part of the flow is diverted to the Jizaq and Kashkadar regions. Thetailwaters of the Zarafshan flow past Bukhara toward the Amudaria, but the river is exhausted beforeit reaches the Amudaria. A diversion canal, the Amu-Bukhara canal, just upstream from the city ofChardzhou on the Amudaria river, diverts water to the east and north to the Shurkul reservoir for usearound Bukhara. This diversion project lifts 2.5 km3 per year, in four stages, 100 meters, to flowinto the Shurkul reservoir.

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Table 1Surface Water Resources in the Aral Sea Basin (1987)

(1,000,000 m3)

A= urban useB= industrial useC= irrigation useD= rural (non-irrigation) useE= other uses

Source: E.D. Rakhimov, Sotsial'noe-ekonomicheskie problemy Arala iPriaral'ia (Tashkent: Fan, 1990), p. 7. Based on Minvodkhoz datapublished in Osnovnye pokazateli ispol'zovaniia vod v SSSR v 1987 g.(Minsk: TsNIIKIVR, 1987).

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total transport total of totalflow loss consumptive consumptive use

use A B C D E

Amudaria 71,172 16,834 54,338 1,026 3,279 48,427 863 743Syrdaria 51,791 10,112 41,679 1,720 5,207 32,868 870 1,014Talas& Arys 2,419 525 1,894 44 86 1,655 35 74

Entire AralBasin 125,382 27,471 97,911 2,790 8,572 82,950 1,768 1,831

Table 2The Aral Sea in Figures

year

1960196119621963196419651966196719681969197019711972197319741975197619771978197919801981198219831984198519861987

annuallevel

53,0053.3553 . 0552.7052.5752.3951.9751.6551.5451.3851.4251. 1250. 6350.3749.9249.0948.3447.7247.1346.6145.8745. 1944 . 6243. 6942.7741.9741. 10—

annualinflowkm3

56.039.935. 140. 651.729.942.837.536.380.638.523.522. 642.58.2

10. 110.37.2

19.712.58.36.0004.000—

precipitationkm3

9.16.88.6

11.78.28.66.77.66.19.17.35.85.89 .04 .84.45.85.16.44.99.7

11.78. 67.43.54.3-—

evaporation TDS*km3 g/1

66.17 0.671.071.364.867.272.058.367.752.662.460.055.456.560.360. 051.245.852.352.150.246.938.757.847.83 8.1---

9.9410.2110.3710. 6310.7110.9110.8511.4311. 0411.5911.2311.7911.9712.3413. 6413.9514. 3314.9715.9016.8017.7018.8020.3021.9022. 0021.5929. 00

* TDS= Total dissolved solids.Source: E.D. Rakhimov, Sotsial'noe-ekonomicheskie problemy Arala iPriaral'ia (Tashkent: Fan, 1990), p. 9. Based on Minvodkhoz datapublished in Osnovnye pokazateli ispol'zovaniia vod v SSSR v 1987 g.(Minsk: TsNIIKIVR, 1987).

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Table 3Relationship between Drainage and Diminishing Water Quality

Source: E.D. Rakhimov, Sotsial'noe-ekonomicheskie problemy Arala iPriaral'ia (Tashkent: Fan, 1990), p. 34. Based on Minvodkhoz datapublished in Osnovnye pokazateli ispol'zovaniia vod v SSSR v 1987 g.(Minsk: TsNIIKIVR, 1987) .

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year irrigated drainage TDSarea system

(1,000 hectares) 1,000 km

Surkhandaria 1960 152.2 1.2 .60at Manguzar 1970 195.4 4.0 .88

1985 271.7 7.2 1.22

Kashkadaria 1960 176.9 0.3 0.49at Karatikon 1970 171.5 1.1 1.01

1985 414.7 4.8 2.50

territory arable land sown area

Kazakhstan 271.7 197.6 35.2.Kyrgyzstan 19.8 10.1 1.2Tajikistan 14.3 4.3 .8Turkmenistan 48.8 35.8 1.2Uzbekistan 44.8 2 6.6 4.1

Table 4Storage Capacity of Reservoirs in the Syrdaria Basin

reported capacity (km3)

Source: S.Kh. Yuldashev, Spravochnik po khlopkovodstvu(Tashkent: Fan, 1981), pp. 55-58.

Table 5Storage Capacity of Reservoirs in the Amudaria Basin

(including the Zarafashan and Kashkadar rivers)

reported capacity (km3)

Source: S.Kh. Yuldasnev, Spravochnik po khlopkovodstvu(Tashkent: Fan, 1981), pp. 55-58.

Table 6Arable Land and Sown Area

in the Central Asian States, 1990(in million hectares)

Source: Narodnoe Khoziaistvo SSSR v 1990a. (Moscow: Finansy istatistika, 1991), pp. 468, 470.

30