Rival Eco-Anxieties: Legacy of Soviet Water Management in the Syr Darya Basin

Flora J Roberts

doi:10.1163/18750230-bja10011

Abstract

Abstract This article focuses on the security and human rights implications of the water infrastructure legacy bequeathed to the Syr Darya river basin in the border area of the Ferghana Valley, by the Soviet period. Taking an environmental history approach, I consider the complex legacy of the system of ageing dams, irrigation canals, and reservoirs which for the most part were set in place between the 1950s and 1980s. Correcting the prevailing narrative that post-Soviet water tensions are often caused by the Soviet habit of disregarding borders and republican-level interests in designing water infrastructure, I show how Soviet water policy in the region fanned and exacerbated inter-republican tensions even while the national territorial divisions were ongoing. Current tensions are therefore not a response to a sudden and unexpected hardening of borders, but the fruit of much longer processes.

Highlights

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, simmering tensions over water management between the Central Asian nations, and occasional outbreaks of violence, have garnered significant international attention and coverage: Central Asia has repeatedly been flagged as the world region most likely to see conflict over via free access roberts water.[1]
This article focuses on the security and human rights implications of the water infrastructure legacy bequeathed to the Syr Darya river basin in the border area of the Ferghana Valley, by the Soviet period
Correcting the prevailing narrative that post-Soviet water tensions are often caused by the Soviet habit of disregarding borders and republican-level interests in designing water infrastructure, I show how Soviet water policy in the region fanned and exacerbated inter-republican tensions even while the national territorial divisions were ongoing

Summary

Introduction

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, simmering tensions over water management between the Central Asian nations, and occasional outbreaks of violence, have garnered significant international attention and coverage: Central Asia has repeatedly been flagged as the world region most likely to see conflict over. It should be clear that the narrative, common among contemporary observers of water tensions in the region, that borders were effectively non-existent or irrelevant before the dissolution of the Soviet Union is inaccurate.[14] The novelty ushered in by the disintegration of the ussr was not political tensions between upstream and downstream republics, or difficulties in reconciling the needs of agriculture and energy production, but rather the depletion of mechanisms for enforcing compliance with agreements brokered between stakeholders.[15] Even the narrative that describes the interests of upstream countries pitted against those of downstream countries is not wholly accurate in the case of Uzbekistan, which with respect to the Syr Darya is both upstream and downstream of Tajikistan, thanks to the convoluted borders of the Ferghana Valley Impulses towards both competition and cooperation remain, and new institutions have arisen to broker agreements, but compliance is weak

A New Ecological Order

Conclusion