Shipwrecks rusting in the desert have come to symbolize the environmental havoc that has befallen the Aral Sea, which straddles Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. More than 90% of what was once the fourth-largest lake in the world has vanished in half a century1, 2, 3. The cracked shores are symptoms of the dramatic overuse of water in central Asia. Since the 1960s, 70% of Turkmenistan has become desert, and half of Uzbekistan’s soil has become salty owing to dust blown from the dry bed of the Aral Sea1.
The republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan were developed as farming states to supply produce to the former Soviet Union1. Today, they are among the highest per capita users of water in the world — on average, each Turkmen consumes 4 times more water than a US citizen, and 13 times more than a Chinese one4(see ‘Top 20 consumers’). More than 90% of the region’s water use is irrigating thirsty crops including cotton and wheat1, 2.
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Like most other parts of the former Soviet Union, central Asian states suffer authoritarian rule and political fragility. Soaring unemployment is leading to a mass emigration of educated people. Current figures estimate that up to one-third of working-age Tajiks are employed abroad. Ethnic, political and religious diversity and difficulties with boundary demarcation fuel nationalism. Internal hostilities, as in the Caucasus, Moldova and eastern Ukraine, are a threat. A full-scale regional conflict, regardless of the rise of radical religious groups, is not out of the question.
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