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Abstract:
Already today, Central Asia faces water
stress with competing water uses and
prevailing low water use efficiencies. For
the future, climate, hydrologic and socio-
economic changes are going to exacerbate
the situation. Research undertaken
in the frame of the CAWa project
revealed that based on the climate model
scenarios climate change will result in
a further increase of mean annual, winter
and summer air temperature, and a substantial
further reduction of glacier-covered
area in the Tien Shan, e.g. the Naryn
basin by 20 – 60 % up to 2050 compared
to the present state. The river runoff regime
is expected to shift from a glacio-nival
to a pluvio-nival runoff regime with
increasing discharge
in springtime and
decreasing discharge
in the summer
months for more pessimistic climate
scenarios. By 2050, the increasing temperature
triggers an increase in crop water
requirements by 5–15 % for most of the
traditional crops in the Fergana valley.
A detailed scenario analysis for the Fergana
valley showed that the economies can
cope with the future conditions if (1) water
use efficiencies in irrigated agriculture
are increased by applying new irrigation
technologies and improving irrigation
infrastructure,
and (2) the land use is adjusted
in favour of new cash-crops like
vegetables, fruits, and grapes. These are
“no-regret” adaptation measures which
the Central Asian economies should undertake
to cope with the socio-economic
changes alone, even if there was no climate change.
