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

1.3. Land Use 
The prosperity of Central Asia, an agrarian region since ancient times, has always 
been very closely interrelated with land use. The fertile soils were the basis of the 
prosperity of the rural population. Out of the total land resources of about 154.9 
million hectares some 59.4 million hectares are considered to be cultivable, of which 
only about 10.1 million hectares (see Table 3) are actually used. Half of the actually 
cultivated lands are located in the oases (which are naturally drained, with fertile 
soils). The other half of the land requires a complicated and expensive set of 
reclamative measures, including not only drainage and leveling, but also improvement 
of soil structure. The total irrigated area is about 7.9 million hectares in former NIS 
states and close to 0.5 million hectares in the Afghan part of the Aral Sea Basin. 
A peculiarity of land conditions of Central Asia is the salt effect caused by natural 
conditions (initial salinity) – inefficient natural drainage, pressure mineralized 
groundwater, high loss from evaporation, and the high capillary capacity of soils – and 
also by anthropogenic conditions (so-called “secondary salinity”), which have 
increased the amount of mineralized groundwater through irrigation and lack of 
drainage. From Table 3 it is clear that almost forty percent of irrigated lands are 
affected by salt. This feature has some important consequences: the yield of irrigated 
crops depends upon the degree of salinity and it is necessary to leach saline lands by 
additional water annually or periodically; in the long run artificial drainage systems 
are needed to guarantee the release of leaching water from irrigated lands. 
Table 3. 
Land use in the Aral Sea Basin 
Country Cultivable 
area (ha) 
Cultivated 
area (ha) 
Irrigated 
area (ha) 
Salt affected 
lands (ha) 
Kazakhstan* 23 
872 
400 
1 658 800 
786 200 
218 000 
Kyrgyz Republic* 
1 570 000 
595 000 
422 000 
21 500 
Tajikistan 
1 571 000 
874 000 
719 000 
118 000 
Turkmenistan 
7 013 000 
1 805 300 
1 735 000 
674 500 
Uzbekistan 25 
447 
700 
5 207 800 
4 233 400 
2 149 500