Integrated Water Resources Management in Central Asia, as a way of survival in conditions of water scarcity

This paper presents the practical outputs of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) pilot implementation in the Fergana Valley shared by three countries of Central Asia: Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. IWRM was not a new approach for Central Asian countries. Some its elements have been practiced for irrigated agriculture development in the region during the Soviet time. For instance, hydrographic institutional set up, coordination between different water users across multiple levels of water hierarchy, water conservation, and consolidated records for all types of waters uses were applied for the development of virgin lands in the Golodnaya Steppe in the 1960–1970s. The new economic and financial conditions of the 1990s and restructuring of the agrarian sector required an updated vision of IWRM to support reforms. To respond to these needs, in 2001 Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) suggested development of a vision of IWRM that would reflect the specificities of the region, and testing it in a pilot project in the Fergana Valley. The IWRM-Fergana project was implemented by national teams from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan and coordinated by the Association of Scientific Information Center of Interstate Commission for Water Coordination (SIC ICWC) and International Water Management Institute (IWMI). The main purpose of the project was to contribute to more secure livelihoods, increased environmental sustainability, and greater social harmony through improved effectiveness of water resources management using IWRM principles.