Global Policy Forum

By Sergei Blagov

All of a sudden, an influential Russian politician, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, has moved to revive a bold plan to build a 2,225-km Siberia-Central Asia Canal to divert Siberian rivers into Asian deserts. However, other Russian officials and experts warn that the project's economic viability is far from certain.

Earlier this month, Luzhkov sent an official letter to President Vladimir Putin, suggesting construction of a 16-meter-deep and 200-meter-wide canal from Khanty-Mansiisk to Central Asia through Kazakhstan.

The Siberian river diversion plan involves the construction of a huge canal, which would bring additional water from the Siberian Ob river (subsequently the Irtysh) to the Central Asian Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers. The canal project would involve diverting about 6-7 percent of the Ob's waters or some 27 cubic kilometers a year.

Luzhkov argued that selling excess fresh water to Central Asia could prove a lucrative project for Russia. According to Luzhkov, the canal would enlarge the amount of arable land in Central Asia by roughly 2 million hectares, and by 1.5 million hectares in southern Siberia.

The project has an estimated price tag of between US$12 billion and $20 billion, an exorbitant amount for impoverished Central Asian states. It is not a small amount even for Russia, currently awash with petrodollars. However, Luzhkov suggested forming an International Eurasian Consortium funded by loans collateralized by future proceeds from fresh water sales to Central Asia.

Some Russian experts, though, are pessimistic. The plan to divert Siberian rivers is a "wicked idea", argues Alexander Nazarov, head of the Northern Affairs committee of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament. The waters of the Ob river are too polluted by nearby oil fields, Nazarov announced on December 16. This opinion was echoed by Nikolai Glazovsky, head of the Moscow-based Institute of Geography. "Such an idea should not be nurtured by any normal-thinking person," Glazovsky told journalists on December 16.

Russian media outlets have also ridiculed Luzhkov's proposal, and the Kommersant daily quoted one government source as suggesting that the idea be checked not by economists but by mental health experts. However, it is understood that the mayor is lobbying in favor of Moscow's huge complex of municipal construction companies, which could get lucrative contracts in the course of the canal project.

Normalization and eventual peaceful development in Afghanistan would mean growth in the Amu Darya's water consumption there by some 10 cubic kilometers a year, according to Luzhkov's estimates. That would mean that Uzbekistan's fresh water supply could be halved, Luzhkov's draft suggests.

Both Central Asian rivers, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, flow to the Aral Sea - the Syr Darya from Kyrgyzstan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and the Amu Darya from Tajikistan through Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. In recent decades, irrigation has so depleted both rivers that in most years no water has reached the Aral Sea.

No big wonder, then, that Central Asian governments back the plan to divert Siberian waters. The on-going environmental disaster around the Aral Sea, which affects some 50 million people, should not be viewed as an internal problem of any state or Central Asian region, Tajik President Emomali Rahmonov reportedly told a meeting of donors for saving the Aral Sea in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, earlier this month. According to the RIA news agency, the meeting concluded that the Aral Sea could not be saved without the Siberian river diversion scheme.

By 2020, according to United Nations experts, the shrinking Aral Sea may no longer exist. UN Environmental Program specialists estimate that the Aral's surface area is now just 25 percent of that before Soviet central planners began diverting the rivers that feed the sea for ill-conceived agricultural irrigation schemes. There is little that can be done at this stage to save the sea from extinction, the UN experts say.

The revival of the Siberia-Central Asia Canal plan comes as yet another page in the project's longish saga. Through the 1970s and the 1980s, the water resources ministry of the former Soviet Union sponsored a water diversion blueprint, and nearly succeeded in launching actual construction.

However, the project was condemned by Russian scholars, who argued that diverting river waters could upset the global environmental balance. These protests became the roots of Russia's homegrown environmental movement. The Soviet government also found the project not feasible economically, hence in the mid-1980s the plan was abandoned.

However, the project is being revitalized at a time when Central Asian states are struggling to share water resources, and Uzbekistan faces serious problems. Agriculture is the cornerstone of the country's economy, and thirsty crops such as cotton and rice require intensive irrigation. Uzbekistan's agricultural infrastructure is dependent on irrigation, which consumes about 90 percent of the country's water resources. In 2001, the country's rice crop reportedly plunged by over 50 percent as compared to 2000, due to lack of water.

In recent months, Uzbekistan has sponsored a number of conferences to support the canal project. One gathering in Tashkent suggested the establishment of an international consortium to develop the project and sought support from leaders of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Russia. The gathering specifically argued that the canal could help to supply more water to Russia's Tyumen, Kurgan and Orenburg regions.

The Russian government is yet to come up with any official reaction relative to the canal project. However, some officials have indicated that Russia itself may face water shortages. Increasing deficiency of clean fresh water is among Russia's most urgent macro-economic and geopolitical problems, Russia's natural resources minister Vitaly Artyukhov announced last November.

Brazil tops the list of big players in fresh water, with 12.7 percent of the world's renewable supply, while Russia is second with 10.2 percent and China trails third with 8.3 percent, according to the Washington-based World Resources Institute.

In the meantime, competition for water is increasing in Central Asia at an alarming rate, adding tension to what is already a volatile region. During the Soviet era, water and energy resources were exchanged freely across Central Asia, and Moscow provided the funds to build and maintain infrastructure. Water use has increased since the Central Asian states became independent in 1991 and is now at an unsustainable level. Due to lack of funding, irrigation systems have decayed and half of all irrigation water never reaches crops.

The problem is that the five Central Asian states have largely failed to come up with a viable multi-lateral approach to replace the Soviet system of management. Therefore, disputes over water and energy have been second only to Islamic extremism as a source of tension in Central Asia, according to a recent report by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based think tank.

Shortly after independence, the five countries agreed to maintain the Soviet-era quota system, but this has become unworkable. In the wake of the civil war in Tajikistan and the decay of Kyrgyzstan's economy, water-monitoring facilities have fallen into disrepair.

Moreover, an annual cycle of disputes has developed between the three downstream countries - Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - which are all heavy consumers of water for growing cotton, and the upstream nations - Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, according to ICG. The downstream countries require more water for their growing agricultural sectors and rising populations, while the economically weaker upstream countries want to use more water for electricity generation.

Moreover, Turkmenistan is using too much water to the detriment of Uzbekistan, which in turn has been accused by Kazakhstan of taking more than its share. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan say that the three downstream countries are all exceeding quotas. Even within Uzbekistan, provinces have accused one another of using too much water.

Moreover, a multilateral agreement between Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan on how to divide the Syr Darya's waters between them expires in 2003, while these countries are yet to agree on a new deal.

The ICG has warned that disputes over water and energy have contributed to a growth of tension in Central Asia. For instance, Uzbekistan has carried out military exercises that look suspiciously like practice runs at capturing by force the Toktogul water reservoir in Kyrgyzstan. Last February, when Kazakhstan stopped supplying electricity to parts of Kyrgyzstan, the Kyrgyz prime minister threatened to leave parts of Kazakhstan without water for irrigation. Hence experts warn that competition for water can only increase in the region.

Therefore, the Siberia-Central Asia Canal could be instrumental in easing tensions over scarce water resources in the volatile region - all that is needed is the political will - and the little matter of about $20 billion.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C íŸ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.