Water and Land Conflict Among the New States of Central Asia

TITLE: Water and Land Conflict Among the New States of Central Asia

AUTHOR: Gregory Gleason University of New Mexico

THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN RESEARCH

1755 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 PROJECT INFORMATION:*

CONTRACTOR: University of New Mexico

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Gregory Gleason

COUNCIL CONTRACT NUMBER: 806-13

DATE: November 13, 1992

Individual researchers retain the copyright on work products derived from research funded by Council Contract. The Council and the U.S. Government have the right to duplicate written reports and other materials submitted under Council Contract and to distribute such copies within the Council and U.S. Government for their own use. ana to draw upon such reports ana materials for their own studies: Out the Council and U.S. Government do not have the right to distribute, or make such reports ana materials available. outside the Council or U.S. Government without the written consent of the authors, except as may be required under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 5 U.S.C. 552. or other applicable law.

The work leading to this report was supported by contract funds provided by the National Council for Soviet and East European Research. The analysis and interpretations contained in the report are those of the author. CONTENTS

Page Conclusions - Abstract 1

Introduction 2 Collective Action and Independence 6 The Causes and Consequences of the Water Crisis 8

Land Reform 12

Dividing the Waters 17

Opportunities for Influence 20 Appendix: Syrdaria and Amurdaria Water Basins 25 Tables 27 Maps 31 WATER AND LAND CONFLICT AMONG THE NEW STATES OF CENTRAL ASIA1 Gregory Gleason University of New Mexico

Conclusions

* The most serious single water dispute involves the transbasin water transfer between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan on the upper Amudaria. * Overt political conflict is most likely between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. * Multilateral, bilateral, or 10-based technical assistance should be conditioned on prior adoption of a principle of equitable apportionment of water among the Central Asian states. * Revivification of the Aral Sea is implausible and should not be a policy objective of external parties. * If created, a comprehensive water management system is apt to be dominated by one party (Uzbekistan). Such a comprehensive management system is unlikely to lead to more efficient use of water resources. * The most likely path to economically efficient and environmen- tally responsible outcomes is to separate the management of the Amudaria and Syrdaria basins. * The least expensive and most promising path to solving the area's problems does not involve direct outside interfer- ence; rather, it involves continuous emphasis on maintaining open information and promoting open discussion to discourage use of the water crisis as a pretext for political ambitions disguised as nationalism.

Abstract Decades of agricultural mismanagement in Central Asia have produced a situation characterized by farm inefficiency, declining agricultural production, economic corruption, widespread underemployment, and environmental degradation. The new states of Central Asia inherited this Soviet legacy as they became nominally independent countries in December 1991. Each of the new states has rhetorically adopted policies directed toward: 1) completing the transition to political independence? 2) managing the transition to a market-based agricultural economy; and 3) cooperating to remedy the region's environmental degradation. In

1This paper is an analytical summary of a 130 page report "Irrigation Rights and Land Tenure in Soviet Asia: A Collective Goods Analysis" copies of which are available from the National Council upon request [(202) 387-0168]. all three areas, progress during the first year of independence was minimal. The present analytical brief explains this lack of progress in terms of collective action theory. In Central Asia, as in any semi-arid agricultural region, the value of land is closely tied to the irrigation system. Agricultural reform and reform of the water management system are therefore inextricably linked. The report describes the current state of the water management system, describes policies directed at land reform, and offers suggestions for achieving desired collective outcomes in the region.

INTRODUCTION

In the closing days of 1991, eleven former Communist Party officials gathered in a hastily arranged meeting in the old communist party headquarters in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, to sign a document that declared an end to the USSR. With the collapse of the USSR, the "Soviet Socialist Republics" of Central Asia, became the independent states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajiki- stan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

During their first year of independence, the Central Asia successor states discovered that they not only inherited many of the problems of past mismanagement under the Soviet regime, they also acquired a variety of daunting new challenges of participa- tion in international affairs. One of the most illustrative examples is the case of the political fragmentation of the highly centralized water management system in Central Asia.

Central Asia's two main river systems, the Syrdaria and the Amudaria, are responsible for irrigating roughly 75 percent of Central Asia's agriculture. Each of these rivers flows through four of the five Central Asian states. As recently as three decades ago, about forty-five cubic kilometers of water reached

2 the Aral Sea annually. Ambitious agricultural expansion programs started in the 1950s resulted in the creation of an extensive, region-wide irrigation system. Irrigation withdrawals put increasing demands upon the region's water resources throughout the 1970s. By 1982, the annual inflow to the Aral Sea fell to nearly zero.

The desiccation of the Aral Sea threatens the local economy, the ecology of the Aral Sea basin, and may have hydrometerologi- cal effects on a global scale. While all of the Central Asian states individually desire to solve the area's common water problem, their individual actions over the last decade have not contributed to common solutions. Now that each of the Central Asian countries has sovereignty over its natural resources, each finds itself at odds with its neighbors to even a greater extent than when they were tributary states of the USSR.

The newly independent countries of Central Asia face unique problems related to their particular types of comparative economic advantage and natural resource endowments. These countries' specialization in agricultural commodities and extractive indus- tries will greatly influence their future economic and political development. Moreover, their geographical position puts a particular set of constraints on commerce; they do not have easy access to foreign markets. But the most important factors in shaping the future development efforts of these countries will not be their unique problems, but the more general features of decolonization and the transition to political independence. Three historical syndromes of newly emergent countries are particularly germane to the Central Asian situation. The first is the problem of economic nationalism. The second is the security dilemma. The third is competition over transboundary resources.

A clear example of economic nationalism is provided by the case of interwar Europe. Between 1919 and 1939, each of the countries of Western Europe was faced with a series of domestic problems that each assumed could only be solved by foreign policies which improved their positions relative to that of their neighbors' positions. The ensuing proliferation of tariffs, trade barriers, currency exchange controls, competitive devalua- tions and, in general, beggar-thy-neighbor policies led to economic disaster. A direct line may be traced from this cycle of economic conflict to political conflict and, ultimately, to violent conflict.

The logic of this form of economic nationalism has a coun- terpart in strategic theory known as the security dilemma. Some forty years ago, Professor John Herz observed that groups or individuals living in an anarchic society act to increase their security from being attacked, subjugated, or annihilated by other groups and individuals. But, as these groups or individuals strive to maintain security from foreign threat, they are driven to acquire more and more power in order to escape the power of others. As Herz wrote in World Politics in 1950, "This, in turn, renders the others more insecure and compels them to prepare for the worst. Since none can ever feel entirely secure in such a world of competing units, power competition ensues, and the vicious circle of security and power accumulation is on."

The third major aspect of the decolonizing situation is conflict over transboundary resources. The Central Asian irrigation system was designed and previously managed by Moscow planners. The Amudaria river flows from Afghanistan through Tajiki- stan, through Uzbekistan, into Turkmenistan, back into Uzbeki- stan, and then into Karakalpakstan before reaching the Aral Sea. The Syrdaria flows from Kyrgyzstan and parts of China into Uzbekistan, through Tajikistan, back into Uzbekistan, and then flows into Kazakhstan. As long as the water management system was under the control of Moscow, it may not have contributed to the efficient use of water, but it did continue to function without overt conflict among the Soviet republics. With the transition to political independence, conflicts that were previously resolvable by Moscow, have acquired the character of international transboundary conflicts.

The Central Asian water crisis has its source in technical problems resulting from poor public policy decisions, poor management practices, and the failure to introduce technologies that would more efficiently use existing water supplies. But as Professor Philip Micklin explained in his earlier report on the Central Asian water situation to the National Council on Soviet and East European research (Contract 802-09, February 1989), water management officials in Central Asia are well aware of means to increase the efficiency of water use through automation, mechanization, the introduction of new water transportation equipment, new drainage technologies, the use of different agronomic practices such as precision field leveling, drip and sprinkle irrigation, or even through the establishment of a computerized, high-technology "Central Asian Water Management

Directorate" with the authority to make "optimal" calculations regarding basin-wide water allocation decisions.

COLLECTIVE ACTION AND INDEPENDENCE

Given the awareness of Central Asians regarding the magni- tude and implications of the water crisis they face, the key question facing Central Asia is surely this:

After a decade of intense discussion of Central Asia's water problems, why have adequate measures to address the situation not been adopted?

The present report proceeds from the premise that the reason that these policies have not been adopted is that the various agents—from the new Presidents, to local Midvodkhoz directors, to the farmers in the field seeking to irrigate their crops—face a collective action dilemma which they are not currently prepared to solve.

A collective action problem is one that involves rational agents allocating collective goods among themselves. A rational agent is a value-maximizing actor in the sense that, with respect to some arrangement of preferences that reflect values, the actor makes choices in such a way as to maximize (or optimize) expected outcomes. A collective good is one characterized by two features, jointness of supply and excludability. If a good has physical properties such that the consumption of the good by one member does not reduce the supply available to other members (eg., a radio wave) then that good is referred as jointly-supplied (or non-rivalrous). If a good has physical properties such that it is not feasible to exclude one party from the good if other parties are benefiting from the good (eg., the beam from a lighthouse) , then it is referred to as a non-excludable good. Pure collective goods are ones that are both jointly supplied and non-excludable.

Several of the common objectives of the new states of Central Asia are essentially collective goods. The establishment and maintenance of regional security; the establishment and maintenance of rules to form a common agricultural market; and the maintenance of a regional, inter-state water management system; are analyzed in this report as collective goods. The production and distribution of pure collective goods present societies with special problems. Since individual agents can neither be excluded from these goods nor does their enjoyment of the goods diminish the supply to other individuals, rational agents may tend to shirk responsibilities or to free-ride on the sacrifice of others. Widespread free-riding and shirking makes it difficult to supply and distribute these goods equitably and efficiently. How do rational, self-maximizing parties manage to provide collective goods? Two classical solution to collective action dilemmas are "Leviathan" and "uncoordinated individual action." In the former case, societies conclude that "the only way" to solve the problem is through the establishment of an overarching political authority that can intervene to settle all disputes and allocate all resources. Alternatively, some societies conclude that the only solution is to "go it alone"; that actors who hesitate or sacrifice for the collective good will be disadvantaged by other agents who act preemptively.

The "Soviet experiment" of these past 70 years furnishes ample empirical evidence why Leviathan does not work. The "go it alone" approach, however, also holds other, less familiar perils for the individual actors in Central Asia.

The goal of this report is to answer two questions: Are there solutions to the problems of land and water reform in Central Asia that can offer a passage between this Scylla and Charybdis? Are there ways in which outside actors can influence this process?

CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE WATER CRISIS

The water crisis in Central Asia is not a crisis of quanti-

ty, it is a crisis of distribution. A general picture of the surface water situation is given in Table 1 (page 27). An annual aggregate total of about 117 km3 (or 117 billion m3—1 cubic kilometer equals 1 billion cubic meters) flows through the Central Asian water system. In 1987, the flow, at 125.3 km3, was

8 greater than normal. Of the total water available in the Aral Sea Basin, about 87 percent is used in rural areas, ten percent is dedicated to industrial use, and about three percent is consumed in municipal uses.

The pressures exerted by Moscow to expand Central Asian agriculture in the 1950s required a significant expansion in the area's vast irrigation system. Although the expansion strategy resulted in some successes—the Soviet Union emerged for a period in the early 1970s as the world's largest cotton producer—the drain on Central Asian regional water supplies exacted a high cost. Emphasis on cotton and "monsoon crops" such as rice placed a high demand on irrigation water. Upstream diversion of Central Asia's rivers for irrigation purposes resulted in progressively diminishing amounts of water reaching the Aral Sea. Soil salination, mineral exhaustion, and the accumulation of residue from agricultural by-products, pesticides, herbicides, and defoliants seriously disrupted the region's ecological balance. The human costs of the deterioration of the environment as measured by high infant mortality and morbidity rates may be attributable in part to the environmental damage of the exhaustion of the area's water resources.

For a long period, criticism of the damage being done was held in check by the nature of the Soviet system and by expecta- tions of the diversion of water from north-flowing Siberian rivers to replenish the Aral Sea. Just months after the Gorbachev administration came to power, however, the river diversion projects stalled and, a short time later, the plans to construct a "trans-Siberial canal" were discontinued altogether. Central Asia's water problems acquired a new urgency.

All analysts agree that the source of the current water crisis in Central Asia is agricultural irrigation. Irrigation accounts for about 84 percent of aggregate withdrawals. As the figures in Table 2 (page 28) illustrate, the most visible conse- quence of the water quantity crisis is the impending desiccation of the Aral Sea. These data also suggest the seriousness of the water quality problem in Central Asia. In general, as water is consumed in the irrigation process through evapo-transpiration, the concentration of salts and other dissolved solids remaining

in the water increases. Thus, as a general principle, the greater the consumptive use upstream, the lower the water quality downstream.

Water added through irrigation percolates to groundwater and, even in semi-arid areas, can raise the water table to the point where it may damage crops by depriving roots of oxygen. As irrigation in parts of Central Asia was expanded during the 1950s and 1960s, Central Asian agronomists identified salination and waterlogging as chief culprits in the low and even declining yields they were observing by the mid-1970s. Major efforts were devoted to creating drainage systems to draw off saline water and other dissolved solids and to rectify waterlogging problems.

However, as data in Table 3 (page 29) suggest, since the drainage system returned the runoff from drained fields back to

10 the rivers, this practice had the effect of reintroducing the returned salts and other residues to the watercourse, increasing the concentration of total dissolved solids for all downstream users. Consequently, many managers assumed that the inexpensive way to solve the salination problem, as well as the more general water quality problem, was to isolate the drainage water from the watercourse by shunting it off into the desert to evaporate. The result of this practice, of course, was increased waste of water.

Any water management system involves two key components, a distribution logic and an institutional logic. The distribution logic is the physical watercourse and the man-made structures that have become part of it. Physical structures are easily identified; they include dams, weirs, diversion canals, and so on. The institutional logic is given by the aggregate sum of incentives and sanctions related to water use. The institutional structures are less easy to define. They include political authority, rules-in-use, management directives, financial incentives and, in general, anything that acts as an incentive or disincentive on water appropriators. The physical system defines a distribution logic; the institutional arrangement defines an institutional logic. A general principle of water management is that to improve the efficiency of the entire water management system, either the physical structures or the institutional structures may be changed, but neither can be changed independently of the other. If disjunctions exist between the physical

11 and institutional logic, waste, inefficiency, and cheating can be expected. As part of a general governmental reform, the USSR Ministry of Water Economy was demoted in 1988 to a Ministry of Water Construction. Two years later, the Ministry of Water Construc- tion was transformed into a Scientific-Technical Institute. With the collapse of the USSR in December, 1991, the individual states of Central Asian became the sole managers of their respective water situations. This is a historically unparalleled situation in which the physical logic of a water management system did not change, but the institutional logic underwent a revolutionary reorganization.

LAND REFORM During the first year of independence, political leaders in all five states of Central Asia committed themselves to liberalization programs. All of these states produced detailed privatization plans and adopted enabling legislation. In all of these states, the cautious, state-engineered privatization that began in the service sector is spreading into the industrial sector. At the same time, the leaders of all these states also announced intentions of instituting agricultural land reform. But by November 1992, a full year after political independence, no comprehensive plans, no detailed programs, and no firm agendas on agricultural land privatization have been announced. No legislation that would enable comprehensive land reform has been adopt-

12 ed. There is no serious parliamentary discussion of the timetable of land reform.

Central Asians explain the reluctance to press forward in de-collectivization by pointing to a number of factors. First, they assert that privatization is not consistent with Central Asian traditional culture. Second, they say that privatization would lead to exploitive use of farmland by settler farmers who would exhaust the land, sell it or abandon it, and then move on. Third, they say that privatization would undercut the existing farm networks and violate the interests of collective and state farm managers. But the fourth reason appears to be the decisive one: if pressed further on the sources of the hesitance to privatize farm land, many Central Asians say that privatization, however it might be accomplished, would leave the best lands in the hands of the most powerful ethnic groups and would leave the least desirable land in the hands of the least powerful.

The Central Asian situation contrasts with that of Russia and many of the other Soviet successor states. In Russia, land reform has been stalled by continuous political contests between the beneficiaries of the old rural order who oppose privatization and the predominantly urban proponents of market-oriented reform who favor it. In Central Asia, land reform has encountered similar political obstacles; but is the specter of ethnic conflict that has brought land reform to its present impasse.

A devolutionary trend in land law started with an all-union law passed in Moscow in February 1990. The following summer,

13 republican level land laws were passed in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. By the end of 1990, all of the Central Asian republics had passed sovereignty declarations. By the end of 1991, most of the republics countries had passed legislation on "de-statification." But the land laws that were adopted in the Asian republics in 1990 and 1991 were adopted in anticipation of incremental political devolution, not political independence. Consequently in all the Central Asian countries, the issue of new land laws—and genuine land reform—was raised again in 1992.

The first nine months of 1992 witnessed the emergence of different trajectories on the part of the new states. Kyrgyz- stan, for instance, embarked enthusiastically on a privatization program with an emphasis on supporting user rights rather than private property rights. The user rights approach has resulted in some considerable distribution of land, but has not addressed the knotty problems of coordination of private management of the land with public management of the water. At an impasse over this issue, high-value irrigated land has not been distributed. Turkmenistan, in contrast, adopted a new constitution which explicitly provided for private ownership in principle, but has instituted policies which make it virtually impossible for anyone to own in practice.

The privatization program in Kyrgyzstan illustrates what can go wrong. As an early adherent of the liberalization course, Kyrgystan was the first to start the decontrol of prices. Yet this did not lead to increased production as the market model

14 suggested it should have; instead it triggered a doubling of prices for many commodities. In the spring, the Kyrgyz government, striving to relieve what it assumed was the temporary pain of shock therapy, increased social expenditures, resulting in a ballooning budget deficit. To salvage the situation, the government sought during the summer to regulate exports and imports to improve its trade balance. Kyrgystan, was thus pressured by the situation into protectionism.

Land reform is never merely a policy of incremental redis- tribution; it is a revolutionary undertaking that transfers power, prestige and the potential for future profit from one group to another. In all newly emergent states, land reform offers an opportunity to address fundamental social inequities. At the same time, it offers an opportunity to local elites to enhance their power and develop patronage networks. Central Asian leaders are aware of the economic promise of successful land reform. They are even more conscious of the threat that dissatisfaction in the rural areas will spill over into political activism. Confronted by the threat of nationalist conflict over privatization, they have opted in favor of the state control of agricultural land with limited leases to private individuals and collectives. This half-measure keeps the control over land in the hands of the state elite. It provides the elite with an illusion of control over the social and political processes in the rural areas. It may satisfy the objections of pastoralists that private property is culturally foreign to Central Asia's

15 history. It allows the state to determine which ethnic group will prosper at the expense of which other. What it does not do is return the land to the tiller.

If the Central Asian countries maintain state ownership of agricultural land and the associated costs of water management and supply, it will be difficult for them to assess the true production costs of agricultural goods. The prospect of state-subsidized agricultural goods being sold outside the country at a profit by private entrepreneurs will discourage them from seeking the gains that can be expected from an open market with individual agents each exploiting comparative advantages. Since no single country can be expected to act unilaterally and in isolation to reduce its subsidies and trade restrictions and permit more liberal trade for fear of flooding of its market with its neighbors' highly subsidized farm products, no one country can be expected to bear the costs of structural adjustment. Indeed, in 1992, each of the Central Asian countries took measures to prevent the private export of agricultural goods outside of the country.

State-subsidized agriculture without private land ownership will position the new states as the key agents in subsequent efforts to develop agricultural exports and to lower agricultural production costs. For upstream states, the cost of water will be one of the few easily managed inputs. The upstream states

(Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and, in a relative sense, Uzbekistan)

16 therefore will have few incentives to compromise in water negoti- ations .

DIVIDING THE WATERS

The most common strategy for solving collective action problems is to form an "association" or "interest group" that encourages exchange in asymmetrical situations and that imposes sanctions to limit free-riding, opportunism, and zero-sum competitive conflict when the asymmetries do not exist. Such an "association" must satisfy four requirements. First, it must increase the costs of opportunism or free-riding. Second, it must make available the benefits of cooperation. Third, it must increase the information available for mutually advantageous "side deals." And, fourth, it must provide for credible commit- ment of all parties. In the particular case of Central Asian water management, how can all of these requirements be satisfied? To answer this question, we consider the principal parameters of the water conflicts in terms of the preferences and interests of the water users.

The first step in reaching a solution to the water management problems is to disaggregate the problems. The main problems associated with the main water courses of the Amudaria and Syrdaria basins are the following:2 1) Upstream-downstream water quantity issue

a description of the Amudaria and Syrdaria water basins see Appendix, page 25. 17 2) Upstream-downstream water quality issue 3) Competing uses within the basins 4) The emergence of five watermasters in lieu of one The upstream-downstream water quantity issue divides the states into two groups: Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are suppliers, the remaining states are consumers. The upstream-downstream water quality issues divides suppliers and consumers into these same two groups. The competing uses within the basin divides industrial users from agricultural users. Particularly at the tailwaters of the two rivers, municipal users are also an important competing group, given the low quality of the water at these points. The emergence of five watermasters in Central Asia divides the technical community and places in the hands of the leadership of the new states the right to make independent decisions. The most promising paths toward solution or management of the conflicts may be seen with respect to each of the main problems. The fact that there are different groups with different interests suggests the possibility of asymmetry and thus complementarity. That is, the fact that interests differ among certain groups and thus preferences may differ, suggests that there may be mutually beneficial tradeoffs among the groups. What are these tradeoffs? With respect to the problems of water quantity, upstream-downstream user groups have complementary interests. Kyrgyzstan, after all, cannot keep the water. (Although they

18 could divert substantial flows to Kazakhstan to the detriment of Uzbekistan) . The tradeoffs suggest the importance of tying economic benefits associated with hydroelectric power to the interests of agriculture. The upstream users would thus have an interest in optimally managing water flow for agricultural purposes. Such an association would of course diminish state sovereignty.

With respect to the problems of water quality, upstream-downstream differences between head users and tail users are not salient. Differences between mid-stream users and tail users are salient as are downstream-downstream differences among the states. However, since most mid-stream differences involve conflicts within individual states, the greatest potential for interstate conflict is between Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turk- menistan .

With respect to the competing users (municipal, agricultural or industrial), the most important conflicts are within individual states. With respect to the emergence of five separate watermasters, the most serious problem is opportunism. If negotiated inter- state compacts can be reached regarding the volume, quantity, and timing of interstate water transfers, the internal management of the system can more efficiently be operated by five than by one Watermaster.

The fundamental principle of the international law of transboundary resources is the doctrine of equitable apportion-

19 ment. This doctrine holds that each co-riparian is entitled to an equitable share of the uses of water of a river system. In practice, the principle often has a number of corollaries: first, no one party is entitled to all of the waters of a transboundary river system; second, a transboundary river system must be equitably shared by all co-riparians; and third, no one party can unilaterally determine its share. A companion principle often recognized in international law is the doctrine of prescription. In English Common Law, prescription holds that long possession may operate to confirm the existence of a title, even if the origin of the title cannot be shown.

Neither the doctrine of equitable apportionment nor the doctrine of prescription can mechanically be used to derive the ideal division of the waters among the new states of Central

Asia. This will have to be done in a process of negotiation, a process which outside actors have the opportunity—and perhaps the obligation—to influence.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR INFLUENCE

The water issue has become highly politicized in Central

Asia. It is now serving as one of the rallying points for nascent political parties and social movements such as "The Committee to Save the Aral Sea." Some observers feel that the water issue will continue to focus attention on the importance of changing the crop structure, reorganizing the irrigation system, or developing an effective large-scale regional effort at envi-

20 ronmental regeneration with the Aral Sea at the center. Other observers, however, note that the political leadership still supports cotton cultivation because of its potential for earning hard currency. Moreover, these observers note that the former Soviet Union is awash in environmental catastrophes, many of which are more urgent that the Aral Sea problem. Some, indeed, assert that the Aral Sea is already lost and should be abandoned in favor of causes and projects which offer greater promise of success.

It should be noted that the public movements of the last four years which emphasized the water problem were stressing a dispute between center and periphery, that is, in a sense, a dispute between "Moscow and Tashkent." Now that the Central Asian countries find themselves at odds with one another, the dynamics of the public protest can be expected to change. Unless the water problem is linked to other broader social issues such as unemployment and economic development, or unless it is linked to symbolic issues such as historical border disputes, the water issue is apt to remain an underlying irritant rather than a cause of overt conflict. The water problem, however, may provide opportunities for extremist political figures who seek to mobi- lize public resentment in support of antagonistic or aggressive foreign policies. If the foregoing analysis of the water problem and the impact of the water problem on the inter-state political dynamics of the region is accurate, it suggests five important consider-

21 ations to be borne in mind by external actors regarding the effects of water conflict on inter-state relations in Central Asia:

1) Both development assistance and humanitarian assistance, whether bilateral or from international organizations, should be conditioned on the prior establishment of a principle of equitable apportionment between the newly emergent states. Analysis of the negotiated agreements regarding the rivers of the American southwest and the rivers of the Middle East would be particularly appropriate. 2) The most serious disagreements over the apportionment of water are apt to be among the downstream consumer states, in particular, between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. A sufficient degree of asymmetry of interests exists between upstream and downstream users to present possibilities of complementary exchanges. 3) The most promising solution to the water allocation would be to form two entirely separate and autonomous water management districts for the Amudaria and the Syrdaria. These districts would unite the interests of the agricultural irrigators and the interests of hydroelectric power generation. This would eliminate the threat of Uzbek domi nation. It would link upstream and downstream users. It would provide both a financial basis for maintenance of the irrigation system and assure that water emphasized agricultural uses. These transnational districts would necessarily reduce state sovereignty in some measure. 4) Water pricing is an important instrument in encouraging water conservation. But this is not high on the agenda of any Central Asian leader. Water management systems are, as Central Asian officials point out, examples of natural monopolies. It is unlikely that water pricing will play any important role in the resolution of the Central Asian water crisis in the foreseeable future. 5) The Central Asians are laboring at an information disad- vantage. Efforts should be made to increase their awareness that principals in such a collective action problem rarely solve the problem acting without outside mediation. The water management problems faced in Central Asia are not unique; but successful formulas for solving the problems may be. The Central Asians should be encouraged to see their situation in comparative terms. The chief lesson of collective action theory is that the potential for conflict, if properly understood, is an invitation to cooperation. 22 States seldom fight over water disputes alone. However, since water can be a major factor in determining the productivity of agriculture in arid regions, water itself sometimes becomes the root cause of inter-regional competition over economic development strategies. A water crisis imposes constraints upon farm incomes, rural employment, and agricultural export opportunities. Water disputes thus frequently act as a constraint upon states' development strategies.

In the absence of asymmetries that could lead to complementary exchanges, competitive development strategies can lead states into overt conflict with one another. The problem, therefore, is not so much water scarcity as what water scarcity implies for the choice of development strategy. For instance, water disputes may force Uzbekistan to feel an obligation to retaliate against Turkmenistan's water diversion at the Karakum Canal (a diversion totaling approximately 25 percent of high season Amudaria flow) as a component of a successful regional development strategy for the tailwater regions of Uzbekistan. Alternatively, if presumed inequities in interregional distribution are adopted as a cause celebre and local leaders transform the water scarcity into a matter of "national surviv- al," the water crisis could easily become a pretext for divisive and potentially violent political change in Central Asia. At present, even given the political vortex in Tajikistan, the "Yugoslav variant" is still avoidable in Central Asia.

23 As in the case of any collective action problem, opportunis- tic action on the part of a single state acting independently, might improve its position unless—as is most likely—the other states would retaliate by cheating. In which case, all states would find themselves saddled with the undesirable outcomes in the form of even greater destruction of wealth and natural resources. In this instance, the range of choices of any state would be significantly narrower than they are now. They would very likely look for "miracle" solutions, charismatic leadership, or scapegoats. The Yugoslav variant offers them an object lesson in the costs of failure.

24 Appendix: Land and Water Conflict in Central Asia

The Svrdaria Basin The Syrdaria is the second largest river in Central Asia with an average annual flow of 51.7 km3 in 1987. The Syrdaria is primarily a glacier-fed river. The Syrdaria begins at the confluence of the Naryn and Karadaria rivers in the Fergana valley of eastern Uzbekistan. The Syrdaria is fed from numerous streams high in Kyrgyzstan, flows down the center of the Fergana valley, flows through a panhandle of Tajikistan at the mouth of the Fergana valley, flows back into Uzbekistan, and then turns north before flowing into Kazakhstan on its way to the Aral Sea. In previous years, the Syrdaria reached its maximum flow (23 km3 per year) at the Kokbulak measuring station just below the confluence of the Syrdaria and Chardara rivers. More recently, however, upstream draws have diminished the amount of water reaching the Kokbulak station and, for more than a decade, the waters of the Syrdaria were exhausted before reaching the Aral Sea. The total area irrigated by the waters of the Syrdaria is about 2.5 million hectares. The Fergana valley is the most important irrigated agricultural area in Central Asia. Roughly equivalent in size to the American state of New Jersey, the Fergana valley is virtually landlocked by Kyrgyzstan on the north, east and south, and by Tajikistan's Leninabad veliat (oblast) on the west. Only a narrow mountainous section of Uzbekistan—with only one paved road—links the valley to the bulk of the republic lying to the west. Irrigation in the valley is managed by a complex system of interlocking canals. Since there is great variability in stream flow in the various tributaries, the interlocking canal system allows for flexible distribution of water without requiring numerous reservoirs within the valley. The largest section of the canal system, the "Yusmon Yusupov Canal" (or "Great Fergana Canal") is 270 km long. Some elements of the canal system are ancient. Parts of the Sharikhan canal on the Karadaria river, for instance, is said to be two thousand years old. On leaving the Fergana valley, a substantial amount of the Syrdaria' s flow is diverted to the west near the city of Bekabad. The diversion was begun in 1942 with an ambitious war-time land expansion program that was to supply irrigation water into an arid plateau to the west of the Fergana Valley called the Hungry Steppe. Eventually, a water management system, called the Farkhad Hydrotechnical Complex, was given the authority by a government and party joint resolution in 1975 to bring into production an additional 547 thousand hectares (500 thousand desiatines) in the area. The Farkhad complex was later extended to carry water further to the west to the Jizaq (Dzhizak) Steppe. (Sharaf Rashidov, who led the Uzbek communist party from 1959 until his death in 1983, was a native of Jizaq).

The Amudaria Basin

The Amudaria is the largest river in Central Asia with an annual flow of 71.1 km3 in 1987. The Amudaria is primarily a glacier-fed river. The Amudaria forms from the confluence of the Piandzh and Vakhsh in eastern Tajikistan. The Piandzh flows along the Tajik-Afghanistan frontier. The mountains in this region are high. The river banks are steep and, consequently, irrigated agriculture was not traditional in this area. In 1930, work was begun on the Vakhsh Irrigation System in the Kurgan-Tiube region, a system that remains primarily local in significance today. After leaving Kurgan-Tiube, the Amudaria flows out of Tajikistan into Uzbekistan. Just below this point, the Kafirnigan and Surkhandaria rivers join the Amudaria from the south slope of the Gissar range. The Surkhandar valley in Uzbekistan, located at the southern reaches of the country, has a relatively long growing season. High-value long staple cotton is grown here. The Amudaria flows through the southern extension of Uzbekistan and then turns northward into Turkmenistan. The most politically significant water diversions in Central Asia take place just above the town of Kerki in Turkmenistan. At the Kerki pumping station, water is drawn off and sent northward over a low ridge of mountains, with a vertical lift is 130 meters, to the Karshin basin. Also water is drawn off at the Kerki diversion station and sent westward to southern Turkmenistan

25 through the Karakum canal. The annual average flow of the Amudaria at Kerki is 62.7 km3. The diversion at the mouth of Karakum Canal reaches 500 m3/sec in the summer months. The annual draw of the diversion is 8.5 km3. Once it has left the Kerki pumping and diversion stations, the Amudaria meanders northward and westward for about 900 km across the Karakum and Kyzylkum deserts on its way to the Aral Sea. Ambient temperatures, slow surface flow and bed filtration account for an annual loss of about 5 km3. The Amudaria is heavily used in the lower reaches for irrigation purposes. It flows through numerous political jurisdictions, passing through the Chardzhou veliat of Turkmenistan before entering the Khorezm veliat of Uzbekistan, flowing back into the Dashauvuz (Tashauz) veliat of Turkmenistan, and then continuing into the Karakalpak Republic on its way to the Aral Sea. Rapid deterioration in ground water quality in the 1960s persuaded planners to undertake an extensive construction project to develop parallel drainage systems along the main course of the Amudaria. In 1982, the flow into the Aral Sea fell to zero. In 1992, however, because of heavy rains and an untimely spill from the Nurek dam due to political turmoil in Tajikistan, the flow into the Aral Sea is expected to be exceptionally large; reported estimates for the year are as high as 20 km3. Agriculture in southern Turkmenistan is supported by the Karakum canal. Construction on the canal was begun in 1962. The original goal was to take irrigation water across the full length of Turkmenistan to the Caspian Sea. Currently, the water flows past Ashgabat to at least Kyzyl-Arvat, but it has not reached the Caspian. Although the issue is not resolved, plans appear to have changed now to shunt the canal to the south around Kazandzhik toward the sub-tropical growing area in Turkmenistan along the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. The Amudaria's waters carried by the Karakum canal are linked to the rivers of the Kopetdag range, the Murgab, the Tedzhen, and a number of seasonal streams. Each of these Kopetdag spring-fed and snow-melt rivers has a series of small holding reservoirs. The Kashkadaria river is a primarily a snow-fed, terminal river and has separate sources from the Amudaria, but is nevertheless considered part of the same drainage basin. The Kashkadar valley opens out into the Karshin Steppe, an area of 1 million hectares of arable land. Because of a scarcity of water, much of this region is dry-farmed. Another snow-fed, terminal river in the basin that also has a separate source is the Zarafshan. The waters from the Zarafshan are used in the ancient cities of Samarkand and Bukhara and part of the flow is diverted to the Jizaq and Kashkadar regions. The tailwaters of the Zarafshan flow past Bukhara toward the Amudaria, but the river is exhausted before it reaches the Amudaria. A diversion canal, the Amu-Bukhara canal, just upstream from the city of Chardzhou on the Amudaria river, diverts water to the east and north to the Shurkul reservoir for use around Bukhara. This diversion project lifts 2.5 km3 per year, in four stages, 100 meters, to flow into the Shurkul reservoir.

26 Table 1 Surface Water Resources in the Aral Sea Basin (1987) (1,000,000 m3)

total transport total of total flow loss consumptive consumptive use use A B C D E Amudaria 71,172 16,834 54,338 1,026 3,279 48,427 863 743 Syrdaria 51,791 10,112 41,679 1,720 5,207 32,868 870 1,014 Talas & Arys 2,419 525 1,894 44 86 1,655 35 74

Entire Aral Basin 125,382 27,471 97,911 2,790 8,572 82,950 1,768 1,831

A= urban use B= industrial use C= irrigation use D= rural (non-irrigation) use E= other uses Source: E.D. Rakhimov, Sotsial'noe-ekonomicheskie problemy Arala i Priaral'ia (Tashkent: Fan, 1990), p. 7. Based on Minvodkhoz data published in Osnovnye pokazateli ispol'zovaniia vod v SSSR v 1987 g. (Minsk: TsNIIKIVR, 1987).

27 Table 2 The Aral Sea in Figures year annual annual precipitation evaporation TDS* level inflow km3 km3 g/1 km3

1960 53,00 56.0 9.1 66.1 1961 53.35 39.9 6.8 7 0.6 9.94 1962 53 . 05 35. 1 8.6 71.0 10.21 1963 52.70 40. 6 11.7 71.3 10.37 1964 52.57 51.7 8.2 64.8 10. 63 1965 52.39 29.9 8.6 67.2 10.71 1966 51.97 42.8 6.7 72.0 10.91 1967 51.65 37.5 7.6 58.3 10.85 1968 51.54 36.3 6.1 67.7 11.43 1969 51.38 80.6 9.1 52.6 11. 04 1970 51.42 38.5 7.3 62.4 11.59 1971 51. 12 23.5 5.8 60.0 11.23 1972 50. 63 22. 6 5.8 55.4 11.79 1973 50.37 42.5 9 .0 56.5 11.97 1974 49.92 8.2 4 .8 60.3 12.34 1975 49.09 10. 1 4.4 60. 0 13. 64 1976 48.34 10.3 5.8 51.2 13.95 1977 47.72 7.2 5.1 45.8 14. 33 1978 47.13 19.7 6.4 52.3 14.97 1979 46.61 12.5 4.9 52.1 15.90 1980 45.87 8.3 9.7 50.2 16.80 1981 45. 19 6.0 11.7 46.9 17.70 1982 44 . 62 0 8. 6 38.7 18.80 1983 43. 69 0 7.4 57.8 20.30 1984 42.77 4.0 3.5 47.8 21.90 1985 41.97 0 4.3 3 8.1 22. 00 1986 41. 10 0 - - 21.59 1987 — — — -- 29. 00

* TDS= Total dissolved solids. Source: E.D. Rakhimov, Sotsial'noe-ekonomicheskie problemy Arala i Priaral'ia (Tashkent: Fan, 1990), p. 9. Based on Minvodkhoz data published in Osnovnye pokazateli ispol'zovaniia vod v SSSR v 1987 g. (Minsk: TsNIIKIVR, 1987).

28 Table 3 Relationship between Drainage and Diminishing Water Quality year irrigated drainage TDS area system (1,000 hectares) 1,000 km

Surkhandaria 1960 152.2 1.2 .60 at Manguzar 1970 195.4 4.0 .88 1985 271.7 7.2 1.22 Kashkadaria 1960 176.9 0.3 0.49 at Karatikon 1970 171.5 1.1 1.01 1985 414.7 4.8 2.50

Source: E.D. Rakhimov, Sotsial'noe-ekonomicheskie problemy Arala i Priaral'ia (Tashkent: Fan, 1990), p. 34. Based on Minvodkhoz data published in Osnovnye pokazateli ispol'zovaniia vod v SSSR v 1987 g. (Minsk: TsNIIKIVR, 1987) .

29 Table 4 Storage Capacity of Reservoirs in the Syrdaria Basin

reported capacity (km3)

Source: S.Kh. Yuldashev, Spravochnik po khlopkovodstvu (Tashkent: Fan, 1981), pp. 55-58.

Table 5 Storage Capacity of Reservoirs in the Amudaria Basin (including the Zarafashan and Kashkadar rivers)

reported capacity (km3)

Source: S.Kh. Yuldasnev, Spravochnik po khlopkovodstvu (Tashkent: Fan, 1981), pp. 55-58.

Table 6 Arable Land and Sown Area in the Central Asian States, 1990 (in million hectares)

territory arable land sown area

Kazakhstan 271.7 197.6 35.2. Kyrgyzstan 19.8 10.1 1.2 Tajikistan 14.3 4.3 .8 Turkmenistan 48.8 35.8 1.2 Uzbekistan 44.8 2 6.6 4.1

Source: Narodnoe Khoziaistvo SSSR v 1990a. (Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1991), pp. 468, 470.