Publication Date:
2020-02-12
Description:
Already today, Central Asia faces water stress with competing water uses and prevailing low water use efficiencies. For the future, climate, hydrologic and socio- economic changes are going to exacerbate the situation. Research undertaken in the frame of the CAWa project revealed that based on the climate model scenarios climate change will result in a further increase of mean annual, winter and summer air temperature, and a substantial further reduction of glacier-covered area in the Tien Shan, e.g. the Naryn basin by 20 – 60 % up to 2050 compared to the present state. The river runoff regime is expected to shift from a glacio-nival to a pluvio-nival runoff regime with increasing discharge in springtime and decreasing discharge in the summer months for more pessimistic climate scenarios. By 2050, the increasing temperature triggers an increase in crop water requirements by 5–15 % for most of the traditional crops in the Fergana valley. A detailed scenario analysis for the Fergana valley showed that the economies can cope with the future conditions if (1) water use efficiencies in irrigated agriculture are increased by applying new irrigation technologies and improving irrigation infrastructure, and (2) the land use is adjusted in favour of new cash-crops like vegetables, fruits, and grapes. These are “no-regret” adaptation measures which the Central Asian economies should undertake to cope with the socio-economic changes alone, even if there was no climate change.
Language:
English
Type:
info:eu-repo/semantics/report
Format:
application/pdf
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