Agricultural water and energy management in Tajikistan: a new opportunity

Abstract

Agricultural water use in Tajikistan is largely based on mechanized irrigation pumps. The farming community cannot afford the cost of the energy used for pumping, resulting in large debts to the service provider. We propose limiting pumping facilities for five years in exchange for energy export to neighbouring countries. The energy export could cover the annual pumping expenditures, pay off agricultural debt and partly rehabilitate the irrigation network. We suggest three scenarios with different pumping energy reductions, and the relevant technical parameters of the set-aside scheme are assessed.

Assessing water security in Central Asia through a Delphi method and a clustering analysis

“…Similar irrigation expectations exist, especially in northern Tajikistan, where a part of the Ferghana valley is shared with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. During the Soviet era and to this day, the Ferghana valley remains the breadbasket of CA with heavily irrigated agriculture and large water pumping systems (Wegerich et al, 2012;Xenarios et al, 2019b).…”

A framework for the assessment of alternative uses in international water law

“…138 Tajikistan continues to experience a shortage of energy supply, resulting in poor irrigational water use efficiency. 139 Moreover, in winter, rivers and canals cannot hold excess water, which can only be transferred to a series of depressions, resulting in the waste of water resources and a reduction of water use efficiency. 140 These examples provide an indication of the scale of costs in relation to uncoordinated national priorities.…”