Environment In Central Asia Research Articles

Natural resources, human capital, and CO2 emissions: Missing evidence from the Central Asian States.

There are papers on association about natural resources, economic expansion, and their effect on the quality of the environment in Central Asia. However, no study has investigated the effect of human capital in this nexus concerning the Central Asian states. Thus this study investigates the link between natural resources, economic expansion, human capital, and CO2 in Central Asian states by employing Pooled Mean Group (PMG) and the Dumitrescu and Hurlin (DH) causality tests from 1995 to 2018. The outcomes from the PMG model showed that human capital has an opposite and significant association with CO2 in the short and long run. Therefore, it is stated that local human capital with higher environmental awareness through education and training makes a positive impact on environmental quality. With the growth of the natural resources index and expansion of the economy, Central Asian emissions will rise. With a positive and substantial coefficient of the natural resources, the finding suggests that, even though Central Asian states have plenty of natural resources, they are unable to exploit them efficiently to reap good rent advantages to reduce the emissions. The outcomes of the causality test stated that the index of natural resources, economic expansion, and human capital have one-way causality with emissions. The important policies and recommendations for maintaining the economic and environmental sustainability of this country are provided at the end of this paper.

Risk assessment of soil erosion in Central Asia under global warming

Soil erosion is a threat to the ecological environment and human health. Climate change is closely related to soil erosion, and the ecological environment in Central Asia is sensitive to climate change. However, there is a lack of comprehensive risk assessments of the soil erosion by wind and water in Central Asia under climate change. This study used climate model data to simulate the spatiotemporal variation of wind and water erosion in Central Asia during the current period (1996–2015) and in the future with global warming of 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C (GW1.5 °C and GW2.0 °C, respectively) compared with the pre-industrial levels. The variations of exposure of population to soil erosion in the future were assessed. The results showed that the overall wind erosion in Central Asia is decreasing, but the area in which increasing wind erosion occurs will increase (2.6% under GW1.5 °C, and 8.6% under GW2.0 °C) compared with the current period. Water erosion in Central Asia is increasing, and the area in which increasing water erosion occurs will increase by 10.2% under GW1.5 °C, and 20.3% under GW2.0 °C. The central arid desert shrub area of Central Asia is the only area where both wind and water erosion increase significantly. Wind speed and precipitation are the main factors that contribute to wind and water erosion. Higher vegetation cover helps to reduce wind and water erosion. Under global warming, more population in Central Asia will be affected by soil erosion, primarily in the upper reaches of the Amu River and the lower reaches of the Syr River. This study should provide a scientific basis for formulating the ecological development plans in Central Asia to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Stav NR Kine o Kosovu i Metohiji u kontekstu odbrane međunarodnog prava i širenja interesnih granica

Despite the geopolitical challenges in the immediate environment in Central Asia and the Pacific, the People's Republic of China plays an increasingly active diplomatic role in the Balkans, primarily by providing unconditional support to Belgrade regarding Kosovo and Metohija. Is it an isolated step forward or a tactical move that is in line with the new strategic foreign policy thinking? In search for an answer, the paper considers the evolution of the principle of non-interference in China's foreign policy, its re-evaluation and adaptation in the context of the transition to a multipolar world order, the expansion of the "interest frontiers" conditioned by the Belt and Road Initiative, and the preservation of China's territorial integrity and sovereignty in the matter of Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The paper analyses the processes that have strengthened Beijing's position on Kosovo and Metohija in recent years: the derecognition of Taiwan and Kosovo and Metohija, the increased Western pressure on Xinjiang and Hong Kong, and the understanding that resolving the status of Kosovo and Metohija is impossible without China's approval in the UN Security Council. It has been concluded that the issue of Kosovo and Metohija reflects both the main postulates of China's foreign policy and its evolution. This attitude of Beijing will make it difficult for the West to complete the "independence of Kosovo", it will increase the pressure of the EU and the US on Serbia, and it will also strengthen the resilience of Belgrade.

Mechanism of interaction between urbanization and resource environment in Central Asia

Central Asia features an arid and semi-arid climate, and the region is undergoing urbanization in the context of a fragile eco-environment. The influence of specific historical events in this region also persists on this ongoing urbanization. This study examines the mechanism of interaction between urbanization and the resource environment in Central Asia. The following results were obtained. (1) In different periods—Russian colonization, the era of the Soviet Union, and Central Asian countries as independent—the interactions between urbanization and the resource environment varied. (2) Variations in land use within 50 km of major cities of the region reflect both the trend of urbanization and that of variations in the eco-environment. In Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, where urbanization has been slow, the supportive effect of the eco-environment for urbanization was clear. In Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, where freshwater resources are scarce, a close relationship was noted between urbanization and variations in the eco-environment. In Kazakhstan, fast urbanization has had a significant impact on the availability of water, grassland, and woodland in the relevant areas. (3) The efficiency of utilization of land and water resources is generally low. The compactness of the urban land of 47 major cities in Central Asia decreased from 0.44 in 1990 to 0.31 in 2015. Of them, 31 cities decreased in compactness, including all national capitals. Regardless of the level of urbanization, water consumption was high across the region. (4) The mechanisms of interaction between urbanization and the resource environment in Central Asia in the three stages were formulated to illustrate their specific temporal conductivity and spatial relevance.

Does China’s Belt and Road Initiative Threaten Food Security in Central Asia?

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) needs little introduction; the infrastructure investment will reconfigure development in Central Asia. As its origin story and initial encounter, Central Asia offers a prismatic lens to delve into the vital impacts and significant changes wrought by the BRI. In the dryland region, the BRI impact on watersheds and agriculture is a critical challenge with direct implications for food security. Framed by diverse research sources, we utilized spatial datasets from the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative and the World Bank to explore the intersection of food production, water and development. Investigation evaluates the possible trade-offs that Chinese infrastructure investment can have on the communities and environment of Central Asia. The findings identify more than 15,000 km of rail and 20,000 km of roads linked to the BRI crisscrossing the region in 2018. Whilst these transport corridors have improved connectivity, many of these rails and roads traverse important agricultural and water zones, creating undetermined risks and opportunities. Land use change was examined within a 10-km buffer around BRI roads and rails from 2008 to 2018. Railways increased by 23% during this time, yet irrigated and rainfed agriculture decreased whilst urban areas markedly expanded. Contextual research identifies how Chinese policies may encourage agribusiness investment for food exports as possible disruptions to national and regional food supply. However, to date Central Asia provides <1% of Chinese agricultural imports. In fact, Afghanistan is the region’s dominant export market, tripling agricultural imports >300% in this time. Similarly, five times more livestock are traded within the region than to China. Evaluating infrastructure change is essential to understand BRI impacts on environments and societies, with the food-water nexus a particular concern in Central Asia. Limited Chinese imports of Central Asian agriculture suggests the region’s food security will not be significantly altered by the Belt and Road Initiative.

АЛИШЕР НАВОИЙ ВА ЁРКЕНТ ХОНЛИГИ ИЖОДКОРЛАРИ АДАБИЙ АЛОҚАЛАРИ

the relevance of the chosen topic is due to the need to study the literature of the Yarkand khanate, most of whose representatives were trained or enlightened in the literary schools of Kokand, Bukhara, Herat, Khorezm,andwere improved by the influence ofthe literary traditions of the great Uzbek poet Alisher Navoi and the literary environment of Central Asia (Turkestan Territory).During our scientific trip to the PRC in 2006-2009, sources in Arabic script were studied which provide information about a pleiad of writers who were little familiar to the Uzbek scientific community based on the works of Alisher Navoi, as well as poets of the Turkestan Territory

Anthropogenic Influences on Environmental Changes of Lake Bosten, the Largest Inland Freshwater Lake in China

A short lacustrine sediment core (41 cm) from Lake Bosten in arid central Asia was used to investigate the environmental changes that occurred in the past ≈150 years based on the superposition of climate and anthropogenic factors. Geochemical elements, total organic carbon (TOC) and nitrogen (TN), and stable isotope data (δ13Corg and δ15N) were used to identify abnormal environmental changes. The average C/N ratio in the sediments of Lake Bosten suggested that the organic matter in lake sediments was mainly from aquatic plants. The δ13Corg and δ15N in the lake sediments mainly reflect changes in the structure of the lake’s ecosystem. Before the 1960s, the primary productivity of the lake was relatively low with a relatively stable lake water environment. From the 1960s to the mid-1980s, the lake’s ecosystem was closely related to a significant decline in water levels caused by human activities and an increase in salinity. From the late 1980s to ≈2000, the aquatic plant structure of Lake Bosten did not change significantly. After 2000, the upper part of the sedimentary record suggested enhanced productivity due to urban and industrial development in the catchment area. However, sedimentary perspectives of the responses of different environmental proxies in sediments to human activities were anisochronous, and the increasing heavy metal (Pb and Cu) and P accumulations appeared in 1970, reflecting heightened human impacts. Through the comparison between the Aral Sea and Lake Bosten, it was inferred that, under the intervention of human activities, the lake experienced a completely different evolution trend. Humans, as geological agents, should protect our living environment while satisfying social development. The results will provide an important supplement to a large spatial scale study of the influences of human activities on the environment in Central Asia, which also has some significant implications for the protection of the ecological environment and the realization of sustainable development in arid regions.

Anthropogenically disturbed potentially toxic elements in roadside topsoils of a suburban region of Bishkek, Central Asia

AbstractThe ecological environment in Central Asia is vulnerable to pressure from human activity due to the physical geography and climatic fragility of this region. A set of indicators suitable for the future assessment of this pressure needs to be proposed. Thirty‐six topsoil samples (0–5 cm) were collected from roadsides in a suburban region of Bishkek, the capital of the Kyrgyz Republic in Central Asia, and a risk assessment of anthropogenically disturbed potentially toxic elements (PTEs) was systematically conducted with classic statistical methods. The results of detrended correspondence analysis and principal component analysis clearly showed that topsoil samples with high contents of PTEs (Pb, Zn and Cu) were strongly affected by traffic within a distance threshold of 200 m and that anthropogenic effects decreased significantly with increasing distance from the highway. The enrichment factor and anthropogenic contribution for Pb were the highest among the three PTEs, with average values of 2.0% and 47.4%, respectively, suggesting enrichment. However, the results of the human health risk assessment also indicated that noncarcinogenic risks did not occur for any of the anthropogenic PTEs. The reported method provides a new systematic pathway to reveal anthropogenic influences on the geochemical composition of soil. The conclusions of this work will be highly valuable as important guidelines for agriculture, and the results of the PTE contents will provide a scientific basis for soil collection in future studies.

Correction: Atmospheric Nitrogen Deposition at Two Sites in an Arid Environment of Central Asia

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Rethinking Central Asia and its Security Issues

During the 20 years of independence, security environment in Central Asia has been changing drastically, with changes in strategies and alliances. This region is acquiring day by day more geostrategic importance due, among other things, to the situation in Afghanistan, to their natural resources, hydrocarbons specially, and their localization among Europe and Asia, Russia and China, India and Iran. This fight for gaining the complete influence in the region is known with the term “new great game”.

Temporal characteristics of mineral dust particles in precipitation of Urumqi River Valley in Tian Shan, China: A comparison of alpine site and rural site

Physico-chemical characteristics of mineral dust particles in the precipitation at both an alpine site and a rural site were determined in the Urumqi River Valley, Tian Shan, China. Results showed that the concentration, size distribution and chemical constitutes of dust particles in the precipitation varied seasonally at both two sites, though there existed obvious differences between them. Dust particle concentration in the precipitation increased during winter and springtime, but it decreased during summer and autumn, which had a positive correlation with strengthened wind speed and Asian dust activity, but a negative correlation with the seasonal variation of the precipitation amount, implying that aerosol dust in the precipitation of Urumqi River Valley in Tian Shan was very sensitive to the seasonal change of regional atmospheric environment in central Asia. Volume-size distribution of mineral dust particles showed larger modal size in Asian dust period of winter–spring, but relatively smaller modal size in non-dust period of summer–autumn. Moreover, the average modal size and mass concentration of dust particles at the rural site are larger than that of the alpine site. Chemical constitutes of dust indicated that the precipitation chemistry was mainly controlled by regional dust storms, local dust and anthropogenic activities in central Asia. HYSPLIT Model was also employed to examine the transport process of air mass and mineral dust particles in this region.

Features and trends of the environmental change in the arid areas in Central Asia

RS-monitoring index systems of ecological environment changes at a large scale, based on empirical data and trends in environmental change in Central Asia, are developed using NOAA and MODIS data. Moreover, with the help of mathematical statistics and GIS spatial analysis, the degrees, hazards and distribution extent of various possible ecological problems are discussed, environmental changes in Central Asia in 1990 and 2005 are separately evaluated, and dynamic changes in the environment in Central Asia over a 15-year period are analyzed. The results reveal that during the 15-year period from 1990 to 2005, areas of degenerated vegetation in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kirghizstan and Tadzhikistan were enlarged by 0.069×105 km2, 0.081×105 km2, 0.296×105 km2, 0.022×105 km2 and 0.112×105 km2, respectively. The ecological environment in Central Asia was in the state of significant degeneration and even deterioration. This study proves that NOAA and MODIS data can be used to successfully monitor the environment and provide useful results.

Terrorism, Geopolitics, and Multinational Security Cooperation in Central Asia

On 22-24 February 2006, the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies(APCSS) held this conference on the complex security environment ofCentral Asia as the region continues to struggle with the phenomena of terrorismand religious extremism, poverty and corruption, political instabilityand authoritarian governance, as well as great power (China, Russia, and theUnited States) suspicion and rivalry. These challenges are not uniquelyCentral Asian, but the region seems to be particularly vulnerable to them asits young nations are undergoing a significant political, social, and economictransformation. How the region copes with these issues will extend importantlessons to the world as a whole.This forum examined the trilemma posed for Central Asia and thebroader Asia-Pacific region. First, for the war on terror in the region to besuccessful, it must evolve into well-implemented stabilization and reconstructionefforts as well as dramatic improvements in governance andhuman rights. Second, no country on its own can alter the situation inCentral Asia, for such an effort requires cooperation between all of the majorpowers and stakeholders in the region (India, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey).The magnitude of the problem of terrorism, which affects most if not allcountries in the region, should preclude another variation of the Great Game.Finally, while the number of regional organizations and security forums inCentral Asia has been growing, the low degree of coordination among themtriggers counterproductive rivalries and plays into the hands of extremistelements. Since terror knows no borders, what happens in Central Asia significantlyimpacts developments elsewhere.Although the counterterrorist effort in Central Asia has successfullymarginalized the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the localization of the terrorist threatmeans that new autonomous extremist cells continue to emerge in CentralAsia. The sources of proliferation of radical Islam can be found in socioeconomicdeprivation, widespread corruption, and political ...

A Survey of the Economic Situation in Xinjiang and its Role in the Twenty-first Century

This paper discusses the macro economic profile of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China during the reform period, the Western Development Strategy and the importance of the region in the changing geo-strategic and geo-economic environment in Central Asia. Xinjiang is the largest administrative unit in China and is rich in mineral resources, especially oil and natural gas, that will make it a major player in generating rapid economic growth in the western part of China in the coming decades. Xinjiang is not only far ahead of other western provinces, it also has the advantage of a flourishing international trade with eight neighbouring countries as well as with other CIS countries and West Asia. The region has also achieved more in basic education. This paper draws attention to the intra-regional economic disparities and the inherent weakness of this arid and water scarce region.