The Kyrgyz Republic is well endowed with water resources, most of which originate from melting snow and glaciers. Precipitation varies greatly, ranging from 130 to 680 millimetres per year, most in the basin of the Syr Darya and a small share in the basin of the Amu Darya. By international agreement, 25 percent can be retained, of which about 90 percent is used for agricultural purposes. There are six main river basin groups in the country. No rivers flow into the Kyrgyz Republic. Because half or more of the country's precipitation falls outside the growing season, growing-season precipitation is inadequate for crop production, and so irrigation is undertaken widely.
Kyrgyzstan has considerable reserves of water resources. Annual average volume water of total water resources makes up 2,458 km3 including 50 cub.km of surface river runoff, 13 km3 of potential reserves of ground water, 1,745 km3 of lake water, *650 km3 of glaciers.
The territory of the Republic except for its highlands is located in a zone of insufficient moistening, where agriculture mainly depends on artificial irrigation. Therefore irrigation is a basic direction of use of water resources. For this purpose from river basins Chu, Talas Syrdaria, lake Issyk-Kul a lot of canals were taken out. Most of the mountain rivers are taken out in summer for irrigation at exit from zone of formation and do not reach main rivers. Water storages serve for purposes of more complete utilization of the rivers runoff. They are: Toktogul (volume 19.5 km3) on the Naryn river, Orto-Tokoi (volume 470.0 mln m3) on the Chu river, Kirov (550 mln m3) on the Talas river and series of small water pools, having local significance. Total amount of water storages in the Republic is 15 with useful capacity more than 10.0 mln m3, from which 3 are of energy use, 2 – of energy and irrigation use and 10 – of irrigation use.
Kyrgyz glaciers are one of the main sources of formation of the rivers’ flow, therefore all the rivers refer to glacial-snow or snow-glacial types of feeding with a mean annual flow of about 50 billion m3.
In total 27826 small and large rivers are formed on territory of the Kyrgyz Republic, which are in overwhelming majority the trans-boundary ones. Only the rivers of a basin of Yssyk-Kul lake refer to the internal (local) rivers.
The main source of drinking water supply is underground waters. Besides drinking water supply the underground waters are used for the industrial needs and partially for land irrigation.
Water for Agriculture and for People
Agriculture is the leading sector of the Kyrgyz economy. As noted, irrigation is critical for crop production. About 1.1 million hectares have been developed for irrigation, i.e., more than 80 percent of the arable land in the country. Since the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, lack of funding for maintenance has resulted in the deterioration of the irrigation dams (bringing with it related safety problems) and reduced capacity of the primary and secondary irrigation systems. Irrigation infrastructure within the boundaries of the former farms has been affected by lack of maintenance as well. Many pumping stations have slowed or stopped operations. In-field water application is inadequate due to lack of equipment and skills. The clogging of drainage systems is leading to increased water logging and soil salinization.
Only about one third of the country's 4.6 million inhabitants has piped water to their homes. Another third receives water from stand posts or water tankers, and the remaining third has no organized water service. About half of the estimated 1,750 villages have no functioning water system. In the southern Oblasts of Osh and Jalalabad, only about 25 percent of the villages have operable water systems. Because of the poor state of repair of facilities, lack of maintenance and insufficient resources available for operations, the reliability and safety of the service is becoming an ever more important concern and source of discontent for the population. Service interruptions have become the norm, particularly in the summer months.
Water legislation and management
The Kyrgyz Republic is endowed with sufficient quantities of water of excellent quality for domestic and industrial use for the foreseeable future. Due to commitments towards downstream countries, water availability is likely to become a constraint on expanding irrigation, extending land reclamation, and improving productivity of irrigated areas, unless there are significant improvements in efficiency, and a major effort made to increase water conservation.
Interstate water relations are covered by regional agreements on the status of organizations of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea, and by a Kyrgyz-Kazakh interstate agreement on the joint use of
water resources and water facilities of the Chu and Talas river basins. Although interstate coordination of water use by the Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan is of great importance, a mutually agreed strategy does not yet exist.
Fact and Figures
Total Available Renewable Water Resources [1] -- 21 km2/yr (11,457 L/day/cap)
Renewed as:
- Surface water produced internally -- 44.94 km3/yr (214%)
- Groundwater recharge -- 13.86 km3/yr (66%)
- Incoming waters -- 0
Used by man -- 10.29 km3/yr (49%)
Rainfall -- 400 mm/year
Water Usage [2] -- 10.29 km3/yr (100%)
By Sector:
- Agriculture -- 9.67 km3/yr (94%)
- Industry -- 0.31 km3/yr (3%)
- Domestic -- 0.31 km3/yr (3%)
Population [3] without Safe Access to..
.. an improved water source (2004) [4] -- 1,197,840 (23%)
The main objective of the preparation of the National IWRM and Water Efficiency Plan is to make it a country policy – otherwise it has a dramatically reduced value. This means that the main actors in water resources management – including finance, economics, environment, industry, health and others must be brought into the process early to ensure that the government adopts the IWRM Plan as policy.
This governance project provides crucial support to the larger UNDP/GEF project Improved land and water resource management in the Upper Syr Darya basin in the context of Sustainable Development which develops community level, national and regional mechanisms for integrated land water management. The Upper Syr Darya basin is threatened by a lack of regionally, nationally and locally coordinated management strategy that integrates land and water use in a sustainable manner. The UNDP /GEF project will address transboundary integrated land and water management through establishing Eco-system quality objectives, which will be scaleable for the whole region to down to small communities. Once these objectives are established, community level, sustainable development demonstration projects that emphasize transboundary cooperation in resource utilization and economic development will be implemented to test their practicality.
The governance project will provide support to the demonstration projects through establishment and maintenance of community Advisory Councils and transboundary Joint Councils. Studies of the social, economic and environmental challenges specific to these communities will be undertaken to provide the groundwork for development of community governance strategies and action plans. The governance project will also provide monitoring and evaluation support of the demonstration projects. Interim and final reports will be prepared on the lessons learnt for the potential replication of projects focusing on enhancing economic development and protection of the environment.
The Upper Syr Darya basin is threatened by the lack of a coordinated water management strategy that integrates land and water use in a sustainable manner. This project, in coordination with the UNDP Energy and Environment Practice and the UNDP, UNEP, OSCE and NATO Environmental and Security (ENVSEC) initiative will address transboundary integrated land and water management through a dual prong approach. The first part is preparation of a transboundary diagnostic analysis complemented by a stakeholder analysis and causal chain analysis that will assist in development of a set of eco-system quality objectives (EQOs) that will serve as the basis for the regional strategic action programme and the national action plans. The second part of this approach is the testing of these EQOs as instruments for sustainable use of land and water resources in the region. These EQOs will be scaleable for the whole region to down to small villages. Once these EQOs are established, two community level demonstration projects that emphasize issues of sustainable development in transboundary cooperation in water resource utilization and economic development will be implemented to test their practicality. The projects will be monitored and evaluated for their application throughout the basin.
Main stages of implementation of a sub-project: Community mobilisation for creation of CDWUU and 5% upfront cash contribution; Preliminary Design in close cooperation with the community by PMC; Approval by CDWUU and other state organisations; Detailed Design by PMC; Transfer of the 5% cash collected to the DRWS account; National procurement of Works and Materials; Construction of the WSS by local firms under PMC’s supervision; Setting tariff by community and CDWUU; Monitoring of the CDWUU performance during the 1st year of exploitation of the WSS.
--> A new add-on project is being developed: "Rural Hygiene & Sanitation" (David Sutherland, DFID, Yerevan EUWI-EECCA meeting Nov 05)
Lessons Learned
Conclusions and recommendations (Nov 2005):
Institutional level: The legislation for drinking water in the the rural areas is still weak; The role of the Department is still unclear and risks its abolition after completion of the project in year 2007; The Department does not have enough capacity (both human and financial) to support several hundreds of newly created CDWUUs; CDWUUs lack state support like temporarily tax vacancies, etc.; The Department is not enough involved in learning and analysing experience of CDWUUs, as well as disseminating successful experience.
Community level: The impact assessment of the project on communities is quite encouraging, but still sustainability is an issue – CDWUUs shall take initiative to: Act as a partner to health and sanitation bodies in rising; awareness about influence of water quality on community’s health; Reinforce peoples’ awareness of community ownership over the community water supply; Formulate expectations regarding community water supply system (like household connections, etc.); Obtain community’s commitment to support WSS construction and maintenance; Continue capacity building.
The project covers new management of the water supply in the Ferghana Valley where locals are battling with excessive salinity, desiccation and declining agricultural fertility. Part of the responsibility for these phenomena lies primarily with uneconomic irrigation systems where approximately 50 percent of the water goes to waste. Under this project, the aim is to identify ways of saving water and increasing soil fertility, as well as improving water management in the countries concerned – Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Measures became imperative because a drop of up to 50% in crop yield has resulted in food shortages and triggered a sharp increase in food imports. The Ferghana Valley, which in itself is very fertile, has a fairly high population density of 900 people per square kilometre. During the initial phase of the project, the legal, financial and institutional situation in the region was studied, the necessary measures determined and possible donors pinpointed. In the second phase, which is still devoted to planning, the initial results will be presented to the project partners and the authorities before the projects themselves are addressed. The project is being conducted in conjunction with the local organization BVO Syr Darya, the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination, the Scientific Information Centre and the International Water Management Institute.
The Project Phase III consolidates, strengths and disseminates the new institutional arrangements and improvements in the field of water and land productivity achieved within Phase II and intensifies the vertical integration of different Project components. In this context the emphasis will be focused on organizational capacity building.
The Project develops the principles and methods of sustainable financing system at canals, WUA and farms levels. This activity will include in discussing issues related to low farm gate prices and production quotas in a political dialogue with the governments and analyzing possibilities to introduce innovative financial tools for financing rehabilitation and improvement works at WUAs and farms levels.
Development of cooperation network with other donors and project will become more essential during Phase III. This will include dissemination of know-how and IWRM principles developed during Phase II within of other donors' projects as well as a coordinated approach to a political dialogue with the governments.
; Press Release on the occasion of launching Phase IV (1 May 2008 - 31 Dec 2010), Feb 2008: : The goal of the IWRM project is to improve and reorganize the institutional and managerial methods of water distribution in the Ferghana Valley. The project mainly addresses the possibilities for water saving, improving agricultural productivity, organizing water administrations, promoting and institutional building-up of the new public - private participation forms and the improvement of water allocation mechanisms among the users and between the three countries.
: Overall, the project aims to contribute to more secure livelihoods, increased environmental sustainability and reduce water allocation disputes and supports the agricultural restructuring in Central Asian countries through improved management of water resources in the Ferghana valley.
: So far three phases of the project have already been successfully implemented. During the Phase I, a detailed analysis of the legal, institutional, economic-financial and managerial issues, as well as an analysis and evaluation of earlier experiences, methodologies and systems developed by other donors and regional and state organizations in the water management sector, was carried out.
: Major achievements of the project during phase two were the increased awareness amongst the policy makers about the principles of IWRM, improved water distribution along canals, demonstrated bottom–up approach, demonstrated potential for increasing yields and water productivity by up to 30 percent. Throughout the third project phase the efforts have been made to improve efficiency of modern governance policies, management procedures and institutional arrangements introduced at the national, regional and local levels during the second phase. The project also focuses on expansion of improved irrigation management practices and strengthening cooperation with other IWRM projects in the region.
: In this phase the project puts greater emphasis on the reform of the water policies at the national level. As a result, innovative solutions for irrigation canal management and sustainable water user associations and effective methods for sustainable financing of the system at the canal, WUA and farm level shall be developed and introduced.
This report is to measure the progress made since all the development players in Kyrgyzstan, along with the government, started to exert their efforts to achieve significant improvements in people’s lives.
