Turkmenistan succeeds in water resource management

President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedov, at the invitation of the Prime Minister of Japan Fumio Kishida, took part in the fourth Asia-Pacific Water Summit (APWS) on April 23 this year. The event was attended by the heads of state, prime ministers, high-ranking representatives of countries, and major international organizations in the region. 

The forum was called «Water for Sustainable Development –Best Practices and the Next Generation» since the water potential of the planet makes a huge contribution to improving the overall well-being of all mankind, in line with the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

In an interview to CentralAsia.news, Allaberdi Ilyasov, a well-known Turkmen scientist, and doctor of technical sciences, analyzed the positions of Turkmenistan in the regional water use, environmental conservation, and efforts to achieve sustainable development. The expert also outlined several rational proposals. 

Gifts of nature

Of the total volume of water on Earth, fresh water, so necessary for mankind, is 2.5 percent. And this number comes from the entire size of the hydrosphere — the water shell of the earth, which is a combination of seas, oceans, land surface waters, groundwater, ice, snows of Antarctica, and the Arctic, atmospheric waters, or approximately 35 million cubic meters.

This volume exceeds the current needs of mankind by more than 10 thousand times, and the remaining 97.5 percent of the capacity of the hydrosphere is the waters of the oceans and salt waters of surface and underground lakes. 

The vast majority of fresh water (70 percent) is in the polar and mountain ice and permafrost, which are practically not used. 

Only 0.12 percent of the total volume of the hydrosphere is made up of surface waters of rivers, freshwater lakes, and swamps. The main source of meeting the needs of mankind in fresh water is river waters. Their one-time capacity is extremely small — 1.3 thousand cubic km, but since this amount is renewed 23 times during the year, the actual figure of available fresh water is 42 thousand cubic km. This is our «water ration», although only half of this amount can be used.

Irrigation systems for agro-industrial complex

The main consumer of water resources is the agro-industrial sector of the economy, which uses about 96 percent of all water resources in Turkmenistan. Taking into account the prospects for the development of the agro-industrial complex, the need for irrigation water can only be satisfied under certain conditions, the most important of which are raising the technical level of irrigation systems through their reconstruction, carrying out a comprehensive reconstruction, and meliorative improvement of the used irrigated lands.

In recent years, fundamental changes have taken place in the agricultural sector. The country continues to introduce high-tech and efficient methods of irrigating crops and work on the use of collector-drainage and waste water, through their accumulation, purification, and desalination is underway, since the agro-industrial complex is directly dependent on the water sector and, in this regard, the adaptation activities of these two sectors are closely interrelated. 

The measures also include the implementation of breeding for the cultivation of drought-resistant crops and technical work to ensure the rational use of water resources (the introduction of advanced irrigation methods — drip irrigation, sprinkling, using siphons, complex reconstruction, and reclamation improvement of irrigated lands).

Sources of life

Water is the basis of human life and activity. Sayings such as «There is no life without water», «Water is life», and «A drop of water is a grain of gold» are effective at all times of human existence. Water, according to Vladimir Dahl’s dictionary, is «… an elemental liquid that falls in the form of rain and snow and forms springs, streams, rivers, and lakes on the ground, and when mixed with salts — seas». 

Water is a renewable resource, but not everyone knows that this potential is limited and very vulnerable. If water is withdrawn from a river or aquifer in excess of their water resources, depletion and deterioration of the quality of the remaining water will inevitably occur.

Groundwater is the most stable source of water resources. Most often, the water used for irrigation comes from groundwater sources. This often opens up great opportunities, especially for regions that do not have other sources. Improving water management in agriculture and food systems aims to increase the productivity of agri-food systems with limited water resources. 

Effective measures

The drying up of the Aral Sea is one of the ecological catastrophes. Much of the water basin has already evaporated, and intense wind erosion is occurring from the drying sea zone to adjacent irrigated areas, thereby causing huge economic losses in agriculture and serious public health problems. 

Vast areas of salt fields formed on the dry part of the sea. One of the methods for combating salt and dust transfer in the Aral Sea region and on the territory of the former seabed was the creation of protective forest plantations from the drought-resistant desert, deciduous, tree-shrub long-root plants by sowing and planting them, resisting deflation and mineralized waters. This is an effective way to combat environmental degradation. In recent years, phytomeliorative work has changed.

These measures already today make it possible to outline the improvement of the ecological situation in the Aral Sea region, contributing to climate mitigation, increasing soil moisture, and saturating the air with oxygen. In addition, forest plantations during the growing season absorb 5-7 tons of carbon dioxide, intercept up to 100 tons of dust, and emit 4-6 tons of oxygen per hectare. The problem of the Aral Sea has been worrying the world community for many years, and it remains relevant to this day.

Solution

Water problems can be solved only on the basis of systematic research methods. The project developers should include political scientists, economists, technologists of relevant areas, hydrogeologists, geographers, geophysicists, specialists in industry and agriculture, ecologists, meteorologists, mathematicians — specialists in system analysis, software developers and others. In general, it is possible to embrace all aspects of the problem only on the basis of an imitation system.

Its main tasks should be such research as forecasting the places of population growth, calculating the optimal development of industry, transport, and agriculture, taking into account the existing state, and assessing the availability of sources of raw materials. Here is also a calculation of the water consumption of these economic entities, a calculation of water sources and their costs depending on the capacity of water production, and a study of the impact on the environment, on the border economic entities of neighboring countries. 

It is necessary to determine the methods of delivering water to consumers, calculate the capacity, quality and costs of water treatment, determine the methods for returning used water to the natural cycle (water treatment and sewerage), places for processing and disposal of waste generated, a comprehensive assessment of the impact on the environment, quotation of the main economic indicators system functioning. 

These tasks should be solved on the basis of statistical material on water consumption and sanitation; study of expert assessments; geophysical and geographical information on the territory.

The developed simulation model should be based on the methods of such disciplines as statistical and system analysis, hydrogeology and geoecology, optimization, regional programming, network control, the theory of hydraulic networks, and the theory of dispersed markets. It is important to note that any problem can be solved if it is considered as a whole.

Forecasts and strategy

The issue of developing forecasts and an emergency strategy is determined by the natural factor and, above all, periodically recurring years in which precipitation sharply decreases, the level of surface water decreases, and the flow in rivers decreases. Such periods are characterized as drought. According to historical data, such natural phenomena are repeated in the conditions of Turkmenistan every 10 years. 

Sometimes their impact is irreversible, and even destroys civilizations. An example of this is the Meshed-Missrian region, which flourished on the territory of Turkmenistan in the 12th century, located near the Caspian Sea. Only because of the lack of water, people were forced to leave this territory in the 14th century, and now there are ruins on this site. 

The impact of drought on the economic situation is extremely high. Thus, during the severe drought of 2000-2001 that engulfed Central Asia, economic losses were high for all countries in the region. According to the Division of World Bank for the Environment and Social Development for East Asia and the Pacific Region, they amounted to 800 million dollars. 

The sustainable development

The principles of the sustainable development of the country provide for a set of measures to ensure environmental safety. The main priorities are such factors as diversification of the industrial complex, combined with environmental protection, ensuring high water quality and mitigating the consequences of the Aral Sea disaster. Pollution control in agriculture, combating salinization and land erosion, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions are in the same row.

Work on introducing digital technologies into the water management system is underway in Turkmenistan. Constructive measures to save water and improve water quality, as well as improve the legislative framework in the field of use and protection of water resources are taken.