“For Kazakhstan, the most alarm concerns two rivers—the Ili and Irtysh,” Eleusizov said. “The new infrastructure and factories in Xinjiang [in western China] consume a lot of water. The drinking water needs are increasing, too. If China continues to increase water consumption in the area, it will certainly affect the water resources on our side.”
Mr. Robert Kaplan predicted in Coming Anarchy that water would be just as important a resource as oil in the 21st century. It will be decades before we know if he’s correct, but we can already see problems in the scarcely populated expanse of Eurasia, in this case with Kazakhstan and China seeing future conflict over river rights. It’s scary to think that by comparison, Central Asia has far more water per person than places like India and the Middle East. Yikes.
- BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
- « JFK Reloaded
- » Iran’s Nixon?
COMMENTS / 2 COMMENTS
Younghusband added these pithy words on 26 Nov 04 at 7:54 amIt is also interesting to note that the so called “upstream” countries (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan), or states that control the flow of water in Central Asia, are dry when it comes to hydrocarbons and depend on “downstream” states (Kaz, Uz and Turkmenistan) for natural gas and oil resources, while the downstream states depend on the upstream for its intensely cultivated, irrigated river valleys.
One thing that gets tempers flaring is the need for the electricity for heat in those cold Kyrgyz nights. Kyrgyzstan controls downstream water flow with its hydro-electric dams, which causes chronic summertime water shortages for Uz. Of course Uz can’t stand for this and cuts off natural gas to Kyrgyz leaving them without gas for the winter, which makes them use more electricity which makes Uz drier which … you can see how the cycle begins.
Also, this same sort of problem is in the Middle East, but that is for another post.
Younghusband added these pithy words on 30 Nov 04 at 4:38 pmProf. Barnett makes a mention of Water Wars here:
