Sustainable Development In Central Asia Research Articles

Development of high‐resolution monthly precipitation datasets for geomorphological applications in the Tianshan Mountains from 2000 to 2050

AbstractPrecipitation has a fundamental influence on landscape evolution and erosion rates. Accurate predictions of precipitation changes are crucial for landscape evolution modelling and erosion modelling. The Tianshan Mountains are known as the ‘Water Tower in Central Asia’, where precipitation is the main water supply for the surrounding lakes and rivers and also supports the population and economic development in the plain areas. This study developed a global climate model (GCM) and digital elevation model (DEM)‐based downscaling method and simulated high‐resolution monthly precipitation in Tianshan from 2000 to 2050, with a resolution of 90 m. The datasets developed from 30 surface observation stations had a high degree of precision and simulated the precipitation processes well in the historical period. The simulation results indicated that precipitation will increase at a rate of 11 mm/decade under the SSP245 scenario and 5 mm/decade under the RCP4.5 scenario from 2022 to 2050. Spatially, precipitation was projected to increase in the central and eastern regions and decrease in the western region. In the Kaidu, Urumqi and Manas river basins in the central Tianshan Mountains, precipitation was projected to increase at a rate of 20 mm/decade. The datasets developed here have important theoretical and practical implications for water resource management, and sustainable development in Central Asia.

Robust historical and future drying trends in Central Asia evidenced by the latest observation and modeling datasets

As one of the largest arid and semiarid regions, Central Asia (CA) is prone to drought, which imposes significant impacts on human communities and ecosystems. Understanding the historical and future wetting/drying trend with the backdrop of climate change is paramount to sustainable development in CA. However, previous studies for the historical period yielded inconsistent results due to different data, study durations and methods used and those for the future period are rare. By analyzing the latest generated long-term (1894–2020) homogenized station observations, multiple global climate model (GCM) outputs and their dynamically and statistically downscaled results, we find robust historical and future drying trend in CA, especially in the growing season (April–September). Though there is an increasing tendency in regional precipitation during 1894–2020 in CA, the Standard Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) shows a decreasing trend due to the dominating influence of regional warming. Compared to the non-growing season (October–March), the decreasing trend of SPEI is more profound in the growing season. Moreover, the SPEI calculated based on the GCM outputs and their dynamically and statistically downscaled results consistently shows future drying trend in CA throughout the 21st century, which robustly holds against the approaches used to calculate potential evapotranspiration (i.e., Thornthwaite and Penman-Monteith equations). Besides SPEI, the simulated soil moisture of surface layer also exhibits a decreasing tendency. All these lines of evidence suggest robust historical and future drying trends in CA, which have important implications for climate change adaptation in this region.

SOURCES OF THREATS TO REGIONAL SECURITY IN CENTRAL ASIA AND MEASURES TO COMBAT THEM

The countries of the region are pursuing an active foreign policy on the path to peace and sustainable development in Central Asia. Making Central Asia a zone of peace and good neighborliness has also been identified as a priority of Uzbekistan's foreign policy. The relevance of this article is that in today's era of increasing sources of global threats, ensuring regional security in Central Asia has become one of the main tasks facing the countries of the region. Trade, economic, transport and transit-logistics, security and stability, equitable use of water resources, strengthening cultural and humanitarian ties, friendship and good neighborly relations between the peoples are being developed between the two countries.

Heavy Metals and Related Human Health Risk Assessment for River Waters in the Issyk-Kul Basin, Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia.

The water resources of Central Asia play an important role in maintaining the fragile balance of ecosystems and the sustainable development of human society. However, the lack of research on the heavy metals in river waters has a far−reaching influence on public health and the sustainable development in Central Asia. In order to reveal the possible sources of the heavy metals and to assess the associated human health risks, thirty−eight water samples were collected from the rivers of the Issyk−Kul Basin during the period with low river flow (May) and the period with high river flow (July and August), and the hydrochemical compositions and major ions of heavy metals were analyzed. No changes in hydrochemical facies were observed between the two periods and the river water type was calcium bicarbonate. Carbonate dissolution and silicate weathering controlled the variation of cations and anions in river waters from the Issyk−Kul Basin. There were some differences in the sources of heavy metals in water bodies between the two periods. During the period with low river flow, heavy metals (Cr) were closely clustered with major ions, indicating that they were mainly affected by water–rock interactions. During the period with high river flow, all heavy metals studied in this paper had different sources of major ions, and the heavy metals maybe influenced by human activities. From the human health risk assessment, the hazard quotients for all samples were less than 1, reflecting that there was no noncarcinogenic risk in the river waters of the Issyk−Kul Basin during the two sampling periods. However, the water samples with carcinogenic risk of arsenic exceeding the threshold (10−4) accounted for 21.1% of the total, indicating that there were some certain carcinogenic hazards for human health via water drinking with direct oral ingestion. The results are of certain significance for the utilization and protection of water resources in the basin as well as the protection of public health.

The Relationship between Economic Growth, Energy Consumption and Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Evidence from Central Asia

This article aims to explore the relationship between economic growth, energy consumption and CO2 emissions of five Central Asian countries between 1998 and 2017. We found that per capita energy consumption has a positive relationship with per capita GDP, while per capita CO2 emissions negatively affect per capita GDP in Central Asia. Further, per capita GDP has a negative impact on per capita energy consumption in the region. Results reflect that the economic growth of Central Asian countries still heavily depends upon energy consumption. However, CO2 emissions in this region should be reduced because it has been defined as a determinant leading to a decrease in economic growth. In the short run, we also found that there is a directional relationship running from per capita GDP to per capita energy consumption and per capita CO2 emissions; and from per capita energy consumption to per capita GDP. Results show that there is a co-integration among variables in the long run. Finally, policies are recommended to enhance economic growth and achieve sustainable development in Central Asia.

Optimizing water resources allocation and soil salinity control for supporting agricultural and environmental sustainable development in Central Asia

In this study, a stochastic-fuzzy-based fractional programming (SFFP) method is advanced for optimizing water-resources allocation and soil-salinity control under uncertainty. The developed method can address ratio objective optimization problems of complex system in association with stochastic and fuzzy uncertainties, which can help gain in-depth analysis of the interrelationships between marginal effectiveness and system reliability. Then, SFFP is applied to an irrigation region in the lower reach of Amu Darya River basin, where linear crop yield-salinity functions and salt-leaching functions are introduced into the modeling formulation for reflecting the complicated interactions among water resources, soil salinity, arable land, and electricity supply. Solutions under 96 scenarios related to different irrigation efficiencies, water availabilities, and electricity supplies have been obtained. Our findings are: i) increased water availability, electricity supply, and irrigation efficiency result in high marginal benefit; ii) irrigation efficiency is the key factor influencing water allocation patterns for crop irrigation and salt-leaching, promotion of which can facilitate mitigating economic and environmental losses in the water-deficit and soil-salinized region; iii) leaching water allocation patterns for soil-salinity washing is related to salinity characters of crops and regions, and boosting drought- and salt-tolerance crop can be effective in adaption to risks of water scarcity and land salinization. Compared to the conventional approaches, SFFP can generate more flexible alternatives and achieve higher marginal effectiveness. These findings can provide effective decision support to identify desired water management strategies under multiple uncertainties for supporting agricultural sustainability in arid regions.

Poverty, food security, and nutrition in Central Asia: a case study of the Kyrgyz Republic

This paper attempts to provide insights into poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition in Central Asia in the period following independence, and presents the available evidence from household-level data in the Kyrgyz Republic. It finds that although some improvement has been made in recent years, significant levels of poverty, food insecurity, and child malnutrition still exist. The paper argues that, in the short run, efforts should be made to protect vulnerable groups by investing in information generation and building capacity to design and implement food security and nutrition policies and programs. Increasing the speed of policy reforms and investment in productivity-enhancing agricultural research and rural infrastructure are fundamental for long-tern sustainable development in Central Asia.

Sustainable Development in Central Asia. Edited by Shirin Akiner, Sander Tideman, and John Hay. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998. xx, 239 pp. $55.00 (cloth).

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Civil society and sustainable development in Central Asia∗

(1996). Civil society and sustainable development in Central Asia. Central Asian Survey: Vol. 15, No. 3-4, pp. 387-398.