Lessons on cooperation building to manage water conflicts in the Aral Sea Basin; Technical documents in hydrology: pc-cp series; Vol.: 11; 2003

3.2.2. Economic Conflicts over Water Use 
Competition for limited water resources occurs between agricultural, rural, urban, 
industrial, and environmental users in the region. On the one hand, irrigated 
agriculture is a major source for food security and simultaneously the biggest water 
consumer (about 90 percent of total water resources used for irrigation). On the other 
hand, there are growing ecological, industrial, and municipal needs. 
Water allocation approaches inherited from the Soviet Era do not take into 
account possible changes in the priorities of the former republics, which are now 
independent states. They all have distinctive water and land reserves and demands, 
sharply differentiated due to current – and especially future – issues related to 
securing per capita indices. The view of the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan is that they 
were held back in Soviet times in developing irrigation, and that they need to reassess 
their future water share. Downstream countries wish to take into account 
environmental constraints, particularly water quality in the middle and lower reaches. 
In addition to this there is the possibility that growing water demands from 
Afghanistan (after stabilization of the situation in that country) could cause new 
requests for reallocation. 
From this point of view there are a number of fields of potential conflict over 
water management in the region. Among countries these relate to water sharing 
issues: quantity, delivery schedules, and shares of expenses to cover water 
management costs within the basin, including upstream and downstream relations. 
Among sectors (irrigation, power generation and environment) there are concerns 
over water allocation, use of water reservoirs, and water sharing for the Aral Sea 
coastal zone and the rivers themselves (sanitary and ecological flows). 
In order to avoid these conflicts, it is necessary to create an efficient framework 
for the use of water, including a legal and institutional basis for the fair and equitable 
sharing of the beneficial water, with equally strict regulations for all WMOs in their 
activity: operation, management, and maintenance.