Conditions In Central Asia Research Articles

Analysis of the Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Dry and Wet Conditions in Central Asia

Drought has become an important threat to industrial and agricultural production and human activities in Central Asia. Using the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), we explored the spatial and temporal patterns of dry and wet changes in Central Asia from 1930–2014. The Mann-Kendall trend test and empirical orthogonal function analysis were used to analyze the characteristics of drought in the interannual and seasonal scales. The results showed that the interannual SPEI index in Central Asia presented a distinct phased feature, in the late 1930s, 1970s and 1990s, three consecutive periods of drought occurred. Seasonal SPEI presented different characteristics, with no obvious drying trends in spring and summer. Autumn and winter showed a wet trend. While an obviously wetting tendency has been detected for the winter season, it started in the mid-1950s. Spatially, drought frequency is 42.87% over the entire region of Central Asia from 1930 to 2014. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are wet relative to other countries in Central Asia, with the frequency of drought occurring at 41.6% and 41.9%, respectively; lower than the average frequency of drought in Central Asia. The average frequency of drought in Kazakhstan is 43.1%. Droughts frequently occur in the central and southern parts of Kazakhstan, with the frequency of drought reaching 46.76%. Droughts hardly occur in eastern of Kazakhstan, as well as in the northeastern region. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are the two driest countries in Central Asia, especially in the desert region. The frequency of drought was 50.68% and 47.64% respectively.

Loess accumulation in the Tian Shan piedmont: Implications for palaeoenvironmental change in arid Central Asia

Whilst correlations have been made between the loess of Europe and China, deposits in Central Asia have remained largely overlooked by scientific investigation. The nature of the relationship between loess accumulation and palaeoclimate at the core of the Eurasian loess belt is particularly poorly understood.Here we reconstruct palaeoenvironmental change in Central Asia over the last 40 ky based on data from the Remizovka loess profile, in the northern foothills of the Tian Shan in southern Kazakhstan. Our interpretations are based on synthesis of chronostratigraphic, colour and magnetic susceptibility data, supported by chronostratigraphies from two additional sites nearby, Maibulak and Valikhanova. All three sites record substantially increased loess accumulation during late MIS 3 into the global last glacial maximum (gLGM). At Remizovka, increased loess flux occurred in two pulses at c. 38-25 ka and 22-18 ka, with the intervening period involving incipient pedogenesis. At Maibulak, two loess pulses at c. 40-30 ka and c. 28-22 ka are separated by a weakly developed paleosol which may date to the same time as pedogenesis at Remizovka. There is additional possible periglacial influence at Maibulak from c. 40–33.5 ka. At Valikhanova, there is some age overlap between paleosol and loess samples, but overall loess accumulation appears to have increased at c. 42-35 ka, c. 30 ka and the gLGM, with pedogenesis occurring >40 ka and c. 32 ka. At all three sites, Holocene loess accumulation is minimal; this period is characterised by pedogenesis.The chronostratigraphic variability between our sites highlights a need to interrogate climate-driven models for loess formation in piedmont environments. We interpret our data in the context of regional palaeoenvironmental archives to indicate that loess accumulation increased coeval with MIS 3 glacial advance in the Tian Shan, which was facilitated by northward expansion of the Asian monsoon and associated increase in precipitation. We hypothesise that increased ice volume impeded teleconnections with the temperate zone westerlies to the north; these were compressed against the piedmont resulting in increased wind strength and facilitating increased loess flux. Peak loess accumulation during the gLGM occurred under colder, drier climatic conditions, with reduced but sustained glacial ice volume and persistent influence of the westerlies in the arid Central Asian piedmont loess belt. In the absence of more widespread, reliably dated palaeoenvironmental records from the region, our data become of critical importance for understanding past environmental conditions in Central Asia, relative to elsewhere in Eurasia and globally.

Yield and water use efficiency of potato varieties under different soil-moisture stress conditions in the Fergana Valley of Central Asia

ABSTRACTDeficit irrigation could be considered as one potential option to improve water productivity and obtain some level of assured income under water scarcity and drought conditions in Central Asia. This article investigates water productivity and economic returns to two varieties of potato crop under four different soil-moisture regimes in Uzbekistan. Results suggest that deficit irrigation may not be considered as an option to improve water productivity of potato crop, particularly when the deficit is high. However, deficit irrigation options could be still considered as a viable option to maintain food security and some assured farm income even under extreme drought conditions.

Central Planning, Local Knowledge?: Labor, Population, and the “Tajik School of Economics”

Central Planning, Local Knowledge?Labor, Population, and the “Tajik School of Economics” Artemy M. Kalinovsky (bio) At a meeting of Central Asian economists and their counterparts from Moscow in 1981, the Tajikistani academic Rashid Rahimov delivered an impassioned speech criticizing those colleagues, some from his own region and others from the Soviet capital, who were arguing against further investment in heavy industry and instead suggesting a program that involved the development of cottage labor to employ the region’s burgeoning population. By this point, Rahimov had led Tajikistan’s Institute of Economics for nearly two decades and had been among those who had been arguing that the development of labor-intensive modern industry in the region was necessary to provide jobs to the region’s young people and raise their standard of living. By the mid-1970s, however, it had become clear that Central Asians were not entering the new industries, and the factories built at great cost were instead being staffed by Europeans. The failure of Central Asians to enter the industrial workforce, in turn, became an argument against further investment in the region’s industrialization. Rahimov, however, was not buying the alternative being proposed. “I will explain my reasoning to you,” he told his colleagues. “Home labor in the conditions of Central Asia is economically effective only on the surface. There is a major social cost here. In the conditions of Central Asia, in small and medium-sized cities child labor is [already] being used. This has to be kept in mind. It means being taken away from school, from gaining relevant knowledge, and so on.”1 Although he did not say so to his colleagues, Rahimov spoke from experience: as a child in the 1940s, he and [End Page 585] his siblings had been pulled in to help with the cottage labor his mother performed at home.2 He and his colleagues had envisioned a future where such labor would no longer be necessary. As we will see, for a while in the 1960s and 1970s their ideas held sway, but by the early 1980s calls for further industrialization were increasingly met with skepticism. Understanding how this change came about, and its consequences, will go a long way toward explaining the consensus that kept Central Asia seemingly so firmly part of the Soviet Union throughout the post–World War II decades, and why that consensus started to come apart in the 1980s. Following these debates will also help us see what happened in Central Asia as part of the broader story of development in the postcolonial world. During the Cold War, scholars examining Soviet Central Asia debated whether the region could be understood as a colony dominated by Russia or, as Soviet propaganda often claimed, a model for the Third World.3 Those who supported the latter view, like Alec Nove and Donald Wilber, pointed to the USSR’s success at developing the region, highlighting figures for industrialization, education, and access to services that compared favorably with indicators for countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran.4 As scholars like Gregory Massell noted, however, Soviet development practices and nationality policy on the periphery threw up their own contradictions by promoting an elite that was encouraged to think of itself in “national” terms and might ultimately challenge the legitimacy of a centrally controlled Soviet system.5 Historians of Soviet Central Asia have returned to these questions, now armed with a theoretical apparatus, possibilities for comparison, and access to archival records and first-person accounts unavailable to their Cold War–era predecessors. These newer studies have highlighted the extent to which the Soviet era in Central Asia, at least during certain periods, was [End Page 586] indeed shaped by the pursuit of deliberately anti- or postcolonial policies, even as legacies of the colonial past proved difficult to overcome, while central control and the single-party system created their own quasi-colonial patterns.6 Scholars have also debated the extent to which various Soviet modernization drives in Central Asia are best compared to other colonial development contexts or to the experience of modernizing states like Kemalist Turkey.7 This article approaches these questions by looking at the careers and efforts of...

Energy balance-based SWAT model to simulate the mountain snowmelt and runoff — taking the application in Juntanghu watershed (China) as an example

In order to predict long-term flooding under extreme weather conditions in central Asia, an energy balance-based distributed snowmelt runoff model was developed and coupled with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. The model was tested at the Juntanghu watershed on the northern slope of the TianShan Mountains, Xinjiang, China. We compared the performances of temperature-index method and energy balanced method in SWAT model by taking Juntanghu river basin as an application example (as the simulation experiment was conducted in Juntanghu River, we call the energy balanced method as SWAT-JTH). The results suggest that the SWAT snowmelt model had overall Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) coefficients ranging from 0.61 to 0.85 while the physical based approach had NSE coefficients ranging from 0.58 to 0.69. Overall, on monthly scale, the SWAT model provides better results than that from the SWAT-JTH model. However, results generated from both methods seem to be fairly close at a daily scale. The structure of the temperature-index method is simple and produces reasonable simulation results if the parameters are well within empirical ranges. Although the data requirement for the energy balance method in current observation is difficult to meet and the existence of uncertainty is associated with the experimental approaches of physical processes, the SWAT-JTH model still produced a reasonably high NSE. We conclude that using temperature-index methods to simulate the snowmelt process is sufficient, but the energy balance-based model is still a good choice to simulate extreme weather conditions especially when the required data input for the model is acquired.

Конструктивные решения наружной стены при уширении корпусов жилых домов вторичной застройки в условиях сейсмической опасности и сухого жаркого климата Центральной Азии

Конструктивные решения наружной стены при уширении корпусов жилых домов вторичной застройки в условиях сейсмической опасности и сухого жаркого климата Центральной Азии

A high resolution study of trace elements and stable isotopes in oyster shells to estimate Central Asian Middle Eocene seasonality

Modern Asian climate is characterized by strong seasonality caused by the duality between monsoon-dominated conditions in southeastern Asia and semi-arid to arid conditions in Central Asia. Eocene high-resolution proxy records which enable the reconstruction of the onset and magnitude of changes in seasonality are lacking to understand in details how and when this climatic turnover pattern occurred. Here, we propose an original method to estimate inter- and intra-annual variabilities in seawater temperature and salinity recorded by carbonate shell growth increments of the fossil oyster Sokolowia buhsii (Grewingk) collected from Late Lutetian marine strata of the Proto-Paratethys in the southwestern Tarim Basin (western China). Elemental ratio (Mg/Ca, Mn/Ca) and carbonate stable isotope composition (δ18O) were determined perpendicular to the growth lines of foliated calcite accumulated in the ligamental area during the oyster's lifetime. We use temperature dependant Mg incorporation to estimate seasonal temperature contrast in the past. Results suggest a warm annual average temperature (~27–28°C) with large offset between summer and winter temperatures (until ∆T≃19°C). Combining these temperature estimates with stable oxygen isotope analyses from the same growth increments we deconvolve seawater δ18Osw as a proxy for salinity. This suggests an average annual salinity about ~34–35 increasing strongly during summer months and decreasing in winter. Based on these data we conclude that during the Middle Eocene, Central Asian climate was characterized by a strong intra-seasonal variability in both temperature and salinity. Although the subtidal setting might have contributed to the strong seasonal offsets this still suggests that semi-arid to arid conditions prevailed during summer, whereas winter was characterized by enhanced rainfall. These results are consistent with previous regional palaeoenvironmental data and climate modelling experiments. They thus attest for the reliability of the method developed here as a seasonal palaeoclimatic indicator.

Doing it all: Women’s employment and reproductive work in Tajikistan

Central Asia has low labor force participation rates for women, despite high levels of poverty in the non-oil producing countries. Female labor force participation is related to competing uses for women’s time, especially in a context of poor infrastructure and limited availability of purchased replacements for household labor. We examine factors affecting women’s participation in employment and reproductive household work in Tajikistan, drawing on the 2003 Tajikistan Living Standards Survey. We incorporate specific conditions in Central Asia, including the prevalence of extended family households, norms about how women share household work, an absence of market substitutes for caring and reproductive labor, employment in family enterprises and poor infrastructure, especially in rural areas. We estimate the system using a Generalized Maximum Entropy (GME) approach. We find that few individual and household characteristics are related to time in employment. Time in noncare reproductive work decreases if a woman receives direct remuneration for her employment (compared to working in a family farm or enterprise but receiving no direct remuneration), but increases if the woman has less access to infrastructure. Rural women spend more time in both employment and non-care reproductive work than urban women, but less time in care work. Lack of infrastructure may leave women with few choices with respect to non-care reproductive work, while overall levels of time poverty create pressures on care time.

A late Pleistocene glacial chronology from the Kitschi-Kurumdu Valley, Tien Shan (Kyrgyzstan), based on 10Be surface exposure dating

Surface exposure dating has become a helpful tool for establishing numeric glacial chronologies, particularly in arid high-mountain regions where radiocarbon dating is challenging due to limited availability of organic material. This study presents 13 new 10Be surface exposure ages from the Kitschi-Kurumdu Valley in the At Bashi Range, Tien Shan. Three moraines were dated to ~15, 21 and >56ka, respectively, and corroborate previous findings that glacial extents in the Tien Shan during Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 2 were limited compared to MIS 4. This likely documents increasingly arid conditions in Central Asia during the last glacial cycle. Morphological evidence in the Kitschi-Kurumdu Valley and a detailed review of existing numeric glacial chronologies from the Tien Shan indicate that remnants of the penultimate glaciation (MIS 6) are preserved, whereas evidence for MIS 5 glacier advances remains equivocal. Reviewed and recalculated exposure ages from the Pamir mountains, on the other hand, reveal extensive MIS 5 glacial extents that may indicate increased monsoonal precipitation. The preservation of MIS 3 moraines in the Tien Shan and the southern Pamir does not require any monsoonal influence and can be explained alternatively with increased precipitation via the westerlies.

Influence of volcanic eruptions on the climate of the Asian monsoon region

Several state‐of‐the‐art general circulation models (GCMs) predict that large volcanic eruptions should result in anomalous dry conditions throughout much of monsoon Asia. Here, we use long and well‐validated proxy reconstructions of Asian droughts and pluvials to detect the influence of volcanic radiative forcing on the hydroclimate of the region since the late Medieval period. Superposed epoch analysis reveals significantly wetter conditions over mainland southeast Asia in the year of an eruption, with drier conditions in central Asia. Our proxy and model comparison suggests that GCMs may not yet capture all of the important ocean‐atmosphere dynamics responsible for the influence of explosive volcanism on the climate of Asia.

Market‐to‐economy developments in Central Asia: performance measurement

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the performance of the emerging markets of Central Asia, and to bridge quantitative development indicators with a qualitative measurement of market and broader socioeconomic conditions. While findings may warrant deeper examination of inter‐ and intra‐country developments, and, inter alia, comparison to other emerging markets, the paper aims to highlight the importance of aligning macro‐level reforms with due development of industry‐level aims to the conditions.Design/methodology/approachThis paper relies on secondary research and data from international financial institutions (IFIs), as well as the author's experience in working with private sector development issues in emerging and developing economies. The Central Asian context derives from a comparison of definitions set out by relevant IFIs. Quantitative economic and outlook data set the stage for further examination of market conditions. The paper also touches upon the total factor productivity economic development indicator that was used as the basis for a World Bank report on economic and productivity growth in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.FindingsWhile this paper examines reforms and development on a regional level, increasingly favorable market conditions in Central Asia may well be an indirect response to a globalizing world economy. The understanding and systematic measurement of both sectoral and macro‐level drivers will lead to a more holistic understanding of economic development in emerging markets.Originality/valueThis paper provides an understanding of existing market conditions in Central Asia, and builds on the importance of market performance measurement in assessing broader economic development.

Mudflat/distal fan and shallow lake sedimentation (upper Vallesian–Turolian) in the Tianshui Basin, Central China: Evidence against the late Miocene eolian loess

The Tianshui Basin in central China contains a thick sedimentary sequence (~ 1400 m) of continental deposits, Aragonian to Villafranchian (Miocene-Pliocene) in age. Intense Himalayan movements around the Paleogene/Miocene boundary triggered the uplift of mountain ranges around the Tianshui Basin, providing the deposition site for continental sediments. The sedimentary infill of the basin consists of four stratigraphic units (I to IV). This paper focuses on Unit II. Most of the accommodation space was occupied by Unit I, so during the sedimentation of Unit II, the morphology of the basin was relatively flat, promoting the development of wide distal fan/mudflat areas and wide shallow lakes. Deposits include: red mudstones, pedogenic and groundwater calcretes, reworked calcrete deposits, sheet-floods, fluvial channels, rippled sandstones/siltstones, ooidal/peloidal packstones, palustrine limestones, bioturbated marls and intraclastic limestones/marls. The characteristics and organization of the deposits indicate the gradual transition from alluvial to lake environments. Within the distal fan/mudflat, the deposition of reworked calcrete clasts as one of the most striking facies of the basin may be attributed to substantial recycling of calcrete levels and red clays. At the lake margins, the presence of ooids and palustrine limestones suggests the possibility of ramp-like margins within different energy settings. The origin of some of the deposits of the basin's QA-I section is under discussion, and their consideration as eolian has been recently proposed. However, we believe this possibility is precluded by the characteristics of the deposits. Our proposal has important implications for revising the interpretation of Miocene paleoclimatic conditions in central Asia.

Climate variability during the past 2,000 years and past economic and irrigation activities in the Aral Sea basin

The lake level history, here based on the relative abundance of Ca (gypsum), is used for tracing past hydrological conditions in Central Asia. Lake level was close to a minimum before approximately a.d. 300, at about a.d. 600, a.d. 1220, a.d. 1400 and since 1960s it is lowering again. Lake water level was lowest during the fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries as indicated by a coeval settlement, which today is still under water near the well-dated mausoleum of Kerderi. Pollen data from riparian vegetation indicate generally wet conditions between a.d. 400 and a.d. 900, intermitted by short intervals with drier conditions (AD 550–600; a.d. 650–700) and riverbanks were again dry from a.d. 900–1150, a.d. 1450–1550, and from a.d. 1970 onward moisture decreased steadily. Irrigation activities were at a maximum between 300 b.c. and a.d. 300 (Classical Antiquity) and between a.d. 800 and a.d. 1300 (Medieval Age) and after a.d. 1960.

Temperature effect on the current-voltage characteristics of single-crystalline Si photovoltaic arrays

Differences in the methods of determining photovoltaic system parameters are analyzed depending on the measurement conditions. The key parameters of photovoltaic systems are measured at temperatures of 20–60°C reached due to solar radiation. Additional measures aimed at improving solar cells (SCs) for their operation in the warm climatic conditions of Central Asia are considered.

Perceptions of Central Asia Travel Conditions: Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan

ABSTRACT This study examines tour operators' perceptions of travel conditions of Central Asia (CA) Countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan). Survey data were gathered from tour operators and travel agents in Turkey. Travel conditions such as barriers, decision influencers for potential tourists to visit CA countries, reasons for travel, and suggestions for encouraging and improving tourism, evaluation of general travel conditions, promotion, and advertisement efforts were assessed. In addition, the study also examined satisfaction with travel to CA countries as a function of general travel conditions. Study concludes with appropriate management and policy implications for both travel operators and the four Central Asian countries.

Climate variability in the Aral Sea basin (Central Asia) during the late Holocene based on vegetation changes

High-resolution pollen analyses (∼ 50 yr) from sediment cores retrieved at Chernyshov Bay in the NW Large Aral Sea record shifts in vegetational development from subdesertic to steppe vegetation in the Aral Sea basin during the late Holocene. Using pollen data to quantify climatic parameters, we reconstruct and date for the first time significant changes in moisture conditions in Central Asia during the past 2000 yr. Cold and arid conditions prevailed between ca. AD 0 and 400, AD 900 and 1150, and AD 1500 and 1650 with the extension of xeric vegetation dominated by steppe elements. These intervals are characterized by low winter and summer mean temperatures and low mean annual precipitation ( P mm < 250 mm/yr). Conversely, the most suitable climate conditions occurred between ca. AD 400 and 900, and AD 1150 and 1450, when steppe vegetation was enriched by plants requiring moister conditions ( P mm ∼ 250–500 mm/yr) and some trees developed. Our results are fairly consistent with other late Holocene records from the eastern Mediterranean region and the Middle East, showing that regional rainfall in Central Asia is predominantly controlled by the eastern Mediterranean cyclonic system when the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is in a negative phase.

Obstacles to the Professionalization of Mass Media in Post-Soviet Central Asia: a case study of Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan is the most populous and economically significant of the five Central Asian republics of the former USSR. Although authoritarian, its government appears to recognize the need to train journalists in Western journalistic theory and practice. The observations and experiences of the authors, as recent Fulbright-sponsored journalism scholars in Central Asia, are combined with limited sources on mass media in the region, to discuss the most effective journalism education under current conditions in Central Asia.

The Russian Financial Crisis and its Consequences for Central Asia

This paper reviews the economic conditions in central Asia at the time of the Russian financial crisis of August 1998; the channels by which the crisis was transmitted to the central Asian region; and the policy responses. The paper concludes that, while real exchange rates of central Asian national currencies vis-a-vis the Russian ruble have returned to their pre-crisis levels following the nominal devaluations that ensued, other indicators of external competitiveness, such as unit labor cost indices, suggest the need for further surveillance in this area. Also, it is not yet clear if full exchange rate flexibility has been established in central Asia despite the protracted and costly exits from the nominal exchange rates in place at the time of the crisis. Finally, the debt-to-GDP ratios in central Asia, which grew rapidly between 1998 and 1999 in the context of large exchange rate adjustments, remain a challenge for the Tajik and Kyrgyz authorities, in particular.

The Russian Financial Crisis and its Consequences for Central Asia

This paper reviews the economic conditions in central Asia at the time of the Russian financial crisis of August 1998; the channels by which the crisis was transmitted to the central Asian region; and the policy responses. The paper concludes that, while real exchange rates of central Asian national currencies vis-a-vis the Russian ruble have returned to their pre-crisis levels following the nominal devaluations that ensued, other indicators of external competitiveness, such as unit labor cost indices, suggest the need for further surveillance in this area. Also, it is not yet clear if full exchange rate flexibility has been established in central Asia despite the protracted and costly exits from the nominal exchange rates in place at the time of the crisis. Finally, the debt-to-GDP ratios in central Asia, which grew rapidly between 1998 and 1999 in the context of large exchange rate adjustments, remain a challenge for the Tajik and Kyrgyz authorities, in particular.

Astroclimatic Conditions in Central Asia and Kazakhstan

Astroclimatic Conditions in Central Asia and Kazakhstan