Special report on water management

Outside the presidential palace in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, the illusion of plentiful water is everywhere. Hundreds of fountains cascade throughout the night, many of them illuminated to the delight of evening strollers. But the facade of such abundance ends there. While the government has yet to officially acknowledge it, Turkmenistan, in common with many of its Central Asian neighbours, suffers from a tenuous water supply. "The problem with Turkmenistan with regard to water - and the drought in Central Asia - is more a problem of distribution rather than supply," the European Union (EU) resident adviser for the TACIS programme, Michael Wilson, told IRIN in Ashgabat. "As there is very little precipitation, they don't rely on it - it's all irrigation and distribution of water." TACIS is a EU initiative aiming to build market economies and democratic societies in the region. Surprisingly, experts maintain that the known supply of water in the country exceeds the current agricultural, industrial and domestic water demand by 30 to 40 percent. In short, this largely desert nation of five million enjoys a surplus, and just this year had its highest precipitation in 30 years. But as positive as this appears, the water prognosis - unless otherwise addressed - remains grim. The country urgently needs to overhaul its antiquated water infrastructure and management, not to mention its overall attitude towards its usage. Whatever interruptions of the water supply occur in the capital can be directly attributed to poor maintenance of an already deteriorating infrastructure. "The water situation is tenuous at the best of times, and this is the very best of times right now," Paul Heinzen, country director of the Farmer to Farmer Programme of the US-based NGO Winrock International in Ashgabat, told IRIN. "The worst-affected area of the country is the northern areas of the country," he said. Wilson was more blunt. "The water situation industrially and domestically is deteriorating rapidly, because there is no investment in the infrastructure. The infrastructure is old. It's constantly breaking down, the seepage and loss of water through it is enormous," he explained. "The priorities to me seem incorrect." But while such comments are nothing new, the official response to date has been minimal. Moreover, there are few international organisations trying to rectify the problem in this reclusive Central Asian state. Indeed, according to a recent international assessment of the situation in three provinces of Turkmenistan, the landlocked nation gripped by poverty, is suffering in some places from the same drought conditions currently affecting much of Central Asia. But while international experts and neighbouring countries acknowledge the problem, Ashgabat has yet to face it head on, referring to it as a "dry spell" instead. Moreover, certain policy measures that could be implemented remain on the drawing board. In a donor update this May, the UN reported that over the past decade, the people of Turkmenistan had seen a dramatic decline in their living standards. Basic domestic water, electric and heating systems are in dire need of repair. Less than two percent of the rural population have access to clean water. Large parts of the country are extremely arid and suffer from poor management of water resources and drought conditions. As a result of declining health conditions, the infant mortality rate (IMR) is rising, the update said. According to a demographic health survey conducted in 2000, about 74 children out of 1,000 live births died within the first year of life. About 17 percent of children under five suffer from various forms of anaemia. Taken together, economic decline and drought conditions have brought about a long-term complex emergency situation, particularly in the northeastern province of Dashhkhovuz. But to understand the country and its water issues, one must first understand its geography. Located deep inside Eurasia, far from the oceans, in a region of inhospitable deserts, Turkmenistan has always been short of water. But calling it a drought - in the conventional sense - is misleading, experts say. More than four-fifths of the country is covered by one of the largest sand deserts in the world - the Kara Kum (Black Sand). Heinzen asked: "How can you have a drought in a desert?" Indeed, Turkmenistan's water problems are more complex. The main source of water for the country's household and industrial use is the Amudarya river along the country's eastern border with Uzbekistan. Known in ancient times as the Oxus, the Amudarya, the largest river in Central Asia, runs 2,550 km from its headwaters in the mountains of neighbouring Tajikistan and Afghanistan to the end of the delta in Uzbekistan, having an annual flow of 60 to 80 cubic km. Additionally, there are the Murgab and Tedgen rivers, which are significantly smaller resources, both of which originate outside Turkmenistan. The remaining rivers, which the government refers to as "small rivers", are also utilised for household and drinking purposes, but have a very low flow throughout the year. Highlighting the deepening food crisis in neighbouring Afghanistan, according to a report by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) released in October, the food supply in countries bordering Afghanistan - Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, had suffered a significant reduction due to serious drought. In Turkmenistan, drought and shortages of water for irrigation for two successive years had affected crop production, the report said. Reservoirs fed by the Amudarya had been significantly lower than the previous year, while the Murgab river supplying water to the southern province of Mary had been virtually dry for most of the cropping season, it added. However, it is the Soviet built Kara Kum Canal - running 1,100 km east to west across the south of the country - which constitutes the nation's lifeline. Fed by the Amudarya, about 90 percent of the country's water needs are met by this canal alone. Described as the largest hydro-technical system of its kind, the canal irrigates 900,000 hectares of land. In fact, more than half the country's total agricultural production is harvested in the canal zone. The canal also meets the water needs of nearly all the country's large industrial cities - Ashgabat, Mary, Byuzmeyin, Nebitdag, as well as Turkmenbashi on the Caspian Sea. However, the drought affecting the rest of Central Asia over the past three or four years is also having a direct impact on the canal. As less water flows through the Amudarya, less is fed into the canal, thereby creating problems with the distribution of water through the existing irrigation system. But despite the canal's importance, minimal efforts are being made to maintain what many view as the country's lifeblood. "They neglect it like a cancer. They don't realise the value of this, but the country's long-term survival depends on it," Wilson maintained. "Investment in this is required now. Forty percent of the water is lost immediately through the irrigation system and the canal through seepage and evaporation." Describing the country's water management policy as an "Alice in Wonderland syndrome", Wilson said the consequences could be serious. "They bury their heads in the sand saying they have enough good land. If they salinate the soil, they think they can just take new land, and they do this every year," he said. Indeed, every year new irrigated areas are taken, leaving behind land which is salinated. He warned that unless effective steps are taken soon, Turkmenistan was in for a disaster. "Humanitarian help would be required in massive amounts. It would be like an Afghan situation," Wilson warned, noting that given the limited amount of water in the region, the Turkmen authorities urgently needed to discuss the situation with their neighbours. At present, only Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are taking water from the Amudarya. However, as reconstruction aid returns to northern Afghanistan, so too will the wish of the local population to draw water off, thereby further reducing an already precarious flow. Whereas the Turkmen authorities to some degree recognise the problem, they look for short-term solutions rather than tackling it head on, "The easy way out is to try to bluff their way through further extraction from the Amudarya - that's increasing the size of the feeder lakes or reservoirs across the country near the Kara Kum canal," Wilson explained. Near the canal are massive reservoirs that fill up when there is plenty of water. This in turn keeps down the hydraulic pressure in the canal. Moreover, large-scale plans are currently being formulated to build a 2,092 sq km artificial lake in the Kara Kum area in order to enhance Turkmenistan's agricultural productivity and guarantee its water security. A thorough feasibility study has yet to be conducted, but experts warn that implementing such a project could have sweeping effects on the region's already fragile environment. So, while increasing the size of these and other projects, ironically the Turkmen authorities continue to neglect cleaning out the existing canal which is slowly silting up. "Now it is becoming critical," Wilson said. "In places you can walk across it." Heinzen said he had heard estimates that up to 80 percent of irrigation water drawn off the rivers was being lost to seepage and evaporation. "One reason for this is that the canals are not lined," he explained, adding one could find pools of water two kilometres away from the canal. "If there is a low spot in the ground, all of a sudden there is a pond over there. All that ground in between is super-saturated with water doing absolutely nothing," he said. Regarding the northern province of Dashkhovuz, although Heinzen did not know what percentage of the area's land was idle, and despite the fact that there had been more water this year than last, it still did not suffice to cultivate much of anything. "They could have a serious problem this year even though the water flow has increased over the previous year as you go north," he explained. Asked what impact this was having on rural communities, he said: "Life is difficult for them at best. They are very poor families. There is almost no income." Turkmen citizens on average earn the equivalent of US $40 per month. Wilson said he believed that these people and those living close to the canal system were suffering the most. "There are severe problems of water purification and utilisation of water. They take [water] from the canals, which is full of all kinds of chemicals from the irrigation systems - particularly from cotton production," he explained. This in turn compounded an already precarious health situation. "We have some people in rural communities drinking salt water. In some places last summer, people were drinking drainage water from irrigation canals, or at least feeding [it to] their livestock - something that inevitably will cause long-term health problems," Heinzen observed. Anatoly Abramov, a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) assistant programme officer, told IRIN that diseases such as typhoid, diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, hepatitis and tuberculosis were all on the increase. "Disruption in safe drinking water supplies and sanitation exposes the population to higher risks of waterborne diseases. Anaemia is prevalent in 74 percent of school children and in nearly all pregnant and lactating women," he explained. Abramov maintained that there were serious problems with water supply systems, which were either nonexistent or were working at a very low standard of efficiency, adding that in villages where there was no reliable public source for drinking water, communities had recourse to unprotected shallow wells or other unsafe sources. Moreover, in areas where there were no networks of canals or rivers, people depended on ground water that was saline. But as disturbing as this is, back in the capital, the flow of water continues unabated. Fountains surge, gardens are irrigated, and taps are left on unnecessarily all night. All this indicates a severe absence of public awareness about water. Ironically, since water is provided free of charge by the government, water wastage is rampant. Few people recognise its true value. One estimate puts water wastage at 27 percent of supply in cities and large towns, while discussion with local officials reveals a much higher figure. "I think the government should make some firm rules about the way water is utilised," Heinzen asserted. "But just making rules is not going to stop people from wasting water. What will make them stop wasting water is making them pay for it."