UNDP calls for integrated water management

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in a new report on Wednesday, has called for integrated water management in Kazakhstan, Central Asia's largest nation. "The main findings of the review indicate that Kazakhstan's further development will be defined by the availability of water for various sectors of the economy," Fikret Akcura, UNDP resident representative for Kazakhstan, told IRIN from the commercial capital, Almaty. "This, in its turn, will depend on successful regional cooperation on cross-border rivers and introduction of efficient water management practices in the country." UNDP Kazakhstan has been spearheading a variety of projects on water usage in the vast steppe nation of 17 million. In terms of water supply, Kazakhstan holds the last place not only in Central Asia, but the whole Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region. A downstream country, nearly the size of India, Kazakhstan receives 44 percent of its water from abroad and remains dependent on neighbouring countries such as Kyrgyzstan, China and Russia and their usage of cross-border rivers. According to the report, entitled 'Water Resources for Kazakhstan in the New Millennium', the limited nature of water resources was a key hindrance to sustainable development and environmental protection. While Kazakhstan was mineral rich, the development of available reserves of crude, oil, gas, coal, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, as well as agricultural lands, required more efficient measures to improve water supplies in regions with poor water resource potential, Akcura explained. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, as part of one integrated region, neighbouring countries provided a major portion of Kazakhstan's surface water resources. But with population and industry amongst these countries also increasing, there has been a sharp rise in the exploitation and pollution of cross-border waters. "Acknowledging the ever-growing water deficit in cross-border river basins and water quality deterioration, it is vital to develop political and legal measures to govern water relations so as to protect the interests of all parties and maintain an environmentally safe regime in the rivers," the UNDP official said. Kazakhstan's economy was currently undergoing structural reform: land ownership and the means of production were changing, often resulting in a shifting balance of water consumption and subsequently in re-distribution of investment among the government sectors, he added. "With these factors in mind, a strategic objective of national water resource policy is to take long-term and complex measures to eliminate the negative effects of water scarcity and to create a foundation for economic growth, as well as solutions to social and environmental issues and the regulation of intergovernmental water relations," Akcura said. Water was an economically valuable resource that determined the sustainability of a country's development, and issues of water quality - of both internal and cross-border rivers - and could not be discussed in isolation from those of water quality, he emphasised. But in order to meet water needs of the future and ensure its efficient usage, the report called for greater cooperation between countries with common cross-border water resources, while at the same time, sought greater involvement of the local population. "It is also important to involve the population in decision-making, establishing working relations between water consumers and administrators, set up water users' associations as a tool to execute water management policy at municipal and private levels of water resource management," Akcura said. Wednesday's report noted that the lack of water, territorial and seasonal unevenness of its distribution and supply, compounded by increasing competition for water create conditions for potential conflict in the region. The situation is further complicated by unfeasible water use and the absence of clear working agreements between the neighbouring states on water apportioning - a carry over from the Soviet era - as well as a mechanism for enforcing the previously reached agreements. In February, thousands of people had to be evacuated in Kazakhstan's southern Kzyl-Orda province after water levels in the Chardara reservoir - part of the Syrdarya river system - resulting in severe flooding in the area. In response, deputy prime ministers of four Central Asian countries gathered in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek and agreed to reduce the flow of the Syrdarya to levels that were set by a previous agreement in early January in southern Kazakh city of Chimkent but were not fully implemented.