By April 2025, Kazakhstan is set to receive 11 billion cubic meters of water from the Syr Darya. Vlast.kz, citing the press service of Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, says this decision was made during a meeting in Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat.
Kazakhstan Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Nurzhan Nurzhigitov, reportedly held discussions with representatives from Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, while Kyrgyzstan participated as an observer.
According to the plan, the necessary volume of water will flow into the Shardara Reservoir by April1, ensuring water availability for Kazakhstan’s southern regions during the 2025 irrigation season.
“I would like to highlight the successful cooperation achieved as a result of the 86th meeting. In particular, agreements were reached on water-energy cooperation with Kyrgyzstan, and steps were taken to coordinate the operation of the Bahri Tojik Reservoir for the current irrigation season,” Nurzhigitov noted.
Additionally, the meeting participants reportedly approved the operational schedules for reservoirs in the Syr Darya and Amu Darya basins and allocated water supply limits for the Central Asian countries for the upcoming autumn-winter period.
The next meeting of the commission is scheduled for the first quarter of 2025 and will take place in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
As it has been reported earlier, Tajikistan in June of 2021 agreed to divert 315 million cubic meters of water from its Bahri Tojik Reservoir, which powers the Qairoqqum hydropower plant in the northern Sughd province, to Kazakhstan, thereby supplying its neighbor to the north with crucial irrigation water in the hot months of summer. Kazakhstan, in turn, undertook to provide Tajikistan with material and technical support in the event of negative consequences from the depletion of the Bahri Tojik Reservoir. The water was reportedly delivered to Kazakhstan’s Turkestan and Kyzylorda regions via Kyrgyzstan from June to August.
In November 2022, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan reached an agreement on additional drawdown of the water from Tajikistan’s Bahri Tojik Reservoir to Kazakhstan during the growing season on a commercial basis due to Kyrgyzstan’s share in the Syr Darya River.
Tajikistan consumes insignificant amounts of water resources for agricultural purposes, because 93 percent of Tajikistan is mountainous. Tajikistan needs water mainly for generation of electric power. Hydropower plants’ reservoirs store water in spring-supper period in order to use it for generation of electricity during autumn-winter period. These accumulations of water are made exclusively at the expense of the water withdrawal quota, which is annually determined by the Central Asian Interstate Commission for Water Coordination.
