DUSHANBE, March 26, Asia-Plus — A low water level in the Syrdarya River may affect agrarian sectors of Central Asia’s states this year, Yarash Pulodov, director of Tajikistan’s scientific-research institute for hydraulic engineering and melioration of the Ministry of Land Reclamation and Water Resources.
According to him, specialists expect the level water in the Syrdarya River to be low this year.
“Compared to last year, the water level in the river is expected to be 20%-30% lower this year,” Pulodov said, noting that it results from relatively low temperature and low level of precipitations in the region this year.
“Today, an immediate task remains to resolve the problem of rational distribution of water resources of the Syrdarya River among the Central Asian countries,” said Pulodov, “This issue is expected to be considered at a jubilee meeting of the Central Asian Interstate Coordinating Water Commission that will be held in Bishkek in late April.”
In Tajikistan, the low water level in Syrdarya may seriously affect agrarian sector of the Sughd province, according to director of Tajikistan’s scientific-research institute for hydraulic engineering and melioration. “The low water level may seriously affect irrigated lands in Asht, Mastchoh, Konibodom, and Zafarobod districts,” Pulodov said.
He added that in Tajikistan, a total area of the irrigated lands is 720,000 hectares. Of them, 300,000 hectares are irrigated due to pump stations.
Syrdarya rises in two headstreams in the Tien Shan
mountains in Kyrgyzstan and eastern and eastern Uzbekistan – the Naryn River and Qaradarya River – and flows for some 2,220 kilometers west and north-west Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan to the remains of the Aral Sea
. The Syr Darya drains an area of over 800,000 square kilometres, but no more than 200,000 square kilometres actually contributes water to the river. Its annual flow is a very modest 28 cubic kilometres per year – half that of its sister river, the Amu Darya. Along its course, Syrdarya irrigates the most fertile cotton-growing region in the whole of Central Asia, together with the cities of Kokand, Khujand, Qyzyl-Orda and Turkestan.
