WHILE URGENCH DRINKS, THE UZBEK DESERT APPROACHES
Alanna Shaikh: 7/9/01

In Tashkent on a hot June day, United Nations Development Program project manager Tatyana Ososkova presented 40 projects under study that could reduce Uzbekistan’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by 19 million tons. She also warned Uzbeks that global warming would approach sooner than they might expect. In the seacoast city of Urgench, it’s already here. When the Soviet authorities dredged the Aral Sea in the ‘80s, they created more than pollution. They hastened climate change’s most pernicious effects.

Urgench, the capital city of Khorezm oblast, had normal weather once. It snowed in the winter and rained in the spring; the temperature changed with the seasons. Now Urgench is warm and dry all year round. The winter is colder than the summer, but the climate can no longer be called temperate. In the absence of rain, rivers and canals are drying up. Khorezm oblast is in a state of permanent drought. Formerly, clouds crossed the Aral Sea, picked up water, and spilled it as rain on Urgench. Now, as the Aral Sea evaporates, they pick up salt instead of water.

As cloud formations blow through, they bring the grey skies, wind, and low barometric pressure that one normally associates with rain. That may explain why while public habits appear unchanged, public health appears abysmal. Khonshoyim Nizomova, a doctor, told Uzbek television in spring that more than 90 percent of women in the Karakalpak district are anemic, with poor ecology a primary cause. A range of health problems from birth defects and infant mortality to cancer and respiratory ailments are on the rise. The cotton harvest in Khorezm is decreasing, and if you accept a cup of tea from a local host the flavor will remind you of the ocean.

Some, like Ososkova, are responding to this drought and strange weather. The United Nations Common Country Assessment for Uzbekistan, released on June 7, calls the increasing salinization of land and water the greatest single threat to the nation’s environment. The State Committee for Science and Technology and Samarkand State University convened the first international conference on fighting desertification in Samarkand nine days later. Participants learned that natural resource losses in Uzbekistan due to desertification are equal to the nation’s GDP, and that sixty percent of Uzbekistan’s agricultural land may go barren from dryness. President Islam Karimov has also recently declared a state of water emergency in Karakalpakistan and Khorezm. Water trucks will deliver emergency supplies. On July 2, Japan approved a $2.5 million grant, through the Asian Development Bank, to Karimov to provide emergency relief.

Yet living in Tashkent, you would never know about any emergency. The fountains of the capital run all summer, and municipal sprinklers wet grass and asphalt. The city’s gutters run with wastewater from car washing, garden irrigation, and leakage from pipes. The city is full of gardens. Water use per capita in the cities of Uzbekistan is 170 liters per day, 570 liters per day in smaller towns. This is much more than necessary, or than most nations at a similar stage of economic development use. Rural Uzbekistan is just as profligate. Cotton, the foundation of the Uzbek economy, is a thirsty crop. Its great need for water is compounded by Uzbekistan’s rudimentary irrigation system. Open ditches and canals feed fields, one of the least effective methods of bringing water. It is estimated that 30-50 percent of irrigation water is lost to evaporation. Simply switching to a drip irrigation system would make a huge difference in water loss.

It’s not surprising for hard-pressed cotton farmers or others a thousand kilometers away to fritter away water. In Urgench, residents have noticed the water problem - dinner table talk turns often to the shattered local ecology- but surprisingly few habits have changed. In a region where the average canal is a foot deep, residents water the streets to keep the dust down. They lavish their orchards with water and keep their dachas lush and green. The city center fountain is always on. One local family grows wheat at their dacha that they have no intention of harvesting. Driving through the streets, you see flower gardens and green grass. Visitors to Urgench often see the shrunken Amu Daryo River, which once fed the Aral Sea. The Aral Sea is an internationally recognized ecological disaster, and inhabitants take bitter pride in surviving.

The government seems to be similarly resigned. It can sponsor a conference, but how is it responding to that conference’s findings? Sending water trucks is a short-term solution. The problem is hardly local: in Turkmenistan, according to Uzbek media, desertification has yielded crop shortfalls of up to 40 percent. No matter how pleasant this summer may be in Urgench, Ososkova’s evidence is foreboding. Uzbekistan’s government and industries must quickly figure out how to protect water resources for the future.

Editor’s Note: Alanna Shaikh is a freelance journalist based in Tashkent.

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Posted July 9, 2001 © Eurasianet
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