Water Security in Central Asia

Water is becoming the most important strategic resource in Central Asia. Five countries — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — share two main rivers, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, that were managed as one system during the Soviet period but are now divided by national borders and competing interests. This article examines the state of water security in the region using recent real-world cases: the shrinking of the Aral Sea, the construction of Tajikistan's Rogun Dam, Afghanistan's Qosh Tepa Canal, the 2020 Sardoba reservoir collapse in Uzbekistan, and border clashes between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan linked to water access. It also reviews the main pressures on the system — glacier loss, population growth and wasteful irrigation — and the policy responses that have emerged since 2017, including Uzbekistan's large-scale shift to water-saving irrigation. The article argues that the region's water problem is less about the total amount of water than about how it is used and shared. It concludes that efficiency in agriculture, transparent data, and a new regional agreement that includes Afghanistan are the three conditions for long-term water security.