Year: 2012
Collections:
Topics: Water, Climate, NEXUS, Hydropolitics
Authors: Thomas Bernauer, Tobias Siegfried
Countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan
Source: Journal of Peace Research
The authors engage in a critical assessment of the neo-malthusian claim that climatic changes can be an important source of international tensions, in the extreme even militarized interstate disputes.
Year: 2008
Collections: Books
Topics: Water, Sustainable Development, IWRM, Water diplomacy, Transboundary Water Resources, Water Security, Transboundary cooperation, Hydropolitics
Authors: Thomas Bernauer, Tobias Siegfried
Countries:
Source:
This book chapter examines the compliance and actual performance of an international water agreement in the Naryn/Syr Darya Basin in Central Asia. The authors analyze the 1998 agreement, which was designed to regulate the operation of the Toktogul Reservoir by balancing Kyrgyzstan’s need for winter hydropower production with Uzbekistan’s and Kazakhstan’s need for summer irrigation water. The main argument of the article is that formal compliance with an agreement does not necessarily mean that the agreement is effective in solving the real water allocation problem. Using the policy performance metric (PER), the authors show that although compliance with the agreement was relatively high, its actual performance was low and highly variable. The article concludes that the existing water management system in the Naryn/Syr Darya Basin requires urgent institutional reform.
Year: 2009
Collections: Research Paper
Topics: Water, IWRM, Transboundary Water Resources, Transboundary cooperation
Authors: Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario
Countries:
Source: Australian Journal of International Affairs
The article examines the challenges of cooperative management of transboundary water resources in Central Asia. The author analyzes water relations among Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan through Ulrich Beck’s concept of “risk society.” The article argues that water scarcity, the transboundary nature of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, the Soviet legacy of centralized water management, artificial borders, and ethnic tensions create significant risks for regional stability.
Year: 2020
Collections:
Topics: Water, Climate, IWRM, Water diplomacy, Transboundary Water Resources, Water Security, Hydropower
Authors: Melinda Davies, Nathanial Matthews
Countries:
Source: International Journal of Water Resources Development
The article focuses on how China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) may affect water resources and water governance in Central Asia. The authors consider Central Asia as a region that already faces a complex water situation, including transboundary rivers, water scarcity, the dependence of agriculture on irrigation, the environmental problems of the Aral Sea, weak coordination between countries, and the impacts of climate change. Against this background, the development of infrastructure, industry, hydropower, and agriculture under the BRI may increase pressure on water resources.
Year: 2013
Collections: Research Paper
Topics: Water, Water governance
Authors: Michael Eichholz, Kristof Van Assche, Lisa Oberkircher, Anna-Katharina Hornidge
Countries: Uzbekistan
Source: Journal of Environmental Planning and Management
This article analyzes the governance of land and water resources in rural Uzbekistan through the lens of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological theory. The authors explore how farmers adapt to post-socialist reforms and successive waves of land consolidation by relying on different forms of capital, including social, political, and symbolic capital. The study demonstrates that, in the absence of an open market and transparent rules, access to resources becomes the outcome of continuous negotiations and exchanges of favors. Under conditions of high uncertainty, social networks and proximity to political authorities prove to be more important than direct financial investments. As a result, the rural economy is transformed into a complex system of personal arrangements, where the survival and success of farming households depend on farmers’ ability to convert their informal assets into actual access to land and water resources.
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