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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
1755 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20036
PROJECT INFORMATION:*
CONTRACTOR: University of New Mexico
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Gregory Gleason
COUNCIL CONTRACT NUMBER: 806-13
DATE: November 13, 1992
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Individual researchers retain the copyright on work products derived from research funded byCouncil Contract. The Council and the U.S. Government have the right to duplicate written reportsand other materials submitted under Council Contract and to distribute such copies within theCouncil and U.S. Government for their own use. ana to draw upon such reports ana materials fortheir own studies: Out the Council and U.S. Government do not have the right to distribute, ormake such reports ana materials available. outside the Council or U.S. Government without thewritten consent of the authors, except as may be required under the provisions of the Freedom ofInformation Act 5 U.S.C. 552. or other applicable law.
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) .
29
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