Abstract
Central Asia is one of the regions that suffer the most prominent transboundary water and energy problems in the world. Effective transboundary water-energy resource management and cooperation are closely related with socioeconomic development and stability in the entire Central Asia. Similar to Central Asia, Northwest China has an arid climate and is experiencing a water shortage. It is now facing imbalanced supply—demand relations of water and energy resources. These issues in Northwest China and Central Asia pose severe challenges in the implementation of the Silk Road Economic Belt strategy. Based on the analysis of water and energy distribution characteristics in Central Asia as well as demand characteristics of different countries, the complexity of local transboundary water problems was explored by reviewing corresponding historical problems of involved countries, correlated energy issues, and the evolution of inter-country water-energy cooperation. With references to experiences and lessons of five countries, contradictions, opportunities, challenges and strategies for transboundary water-energy cooperation between China and Central Asia were discussed under the promotion of the Silk Road Economic Belt construction based on current cooperation conditions.
Highlights
Transboundary water resources may become the root of tension and fierce competition among countries because of the increasing global shortage of fresh water resources
Northwest China, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, which are in the arid inland region of Central Asia, are all faced with the prominent conflict between socioeconomic development and water supply–demand
In Central Asia, large quantities of water are stored in the mountain glaciers of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, while Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have extensive and mostly unexplored oil and gas deposits
Summary
Transboundary water resources may become the root of tension and fierce competition among countries because of the increasing global shortage of fresh water resources. With the accelerated promotion of the proposed “Silk Road Economic Belt” strategy, water and energy problems in Central Asia and Northwest China will pose severe challenges against further socioeconomic development of involved regions. In the centralized planned economic system of the Soviet Union, a complementation between the water resources advantages of upstream Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and the energy resources (including petroleum, natural gas, and coal) advantages of downstream Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Russia is formed.
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