Almaty hosted the international conference on a cross-border cooperation in Central Asia
On September 7th and 8th, 2017, the International Scientific and Practical Conference "Transboundary Cooperation in Central Asia - Security, Stability and Welfare of the Whole Region" was held at the Kazakh National Agrarian University.
The conference was organized by the Executive Directorate of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea in the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kazakh National Agrarian University with the support of the Geography Institute of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Global Water Partnership of Kazakhstan, the OSCE Office in Astana, the Kazakhstan branch of the ICWC Scientific Information Center (SIC ICWC) and CAREC.
The opening speech was made by the first vice-rector of KazNAU, academician Tireuov Kanat and noted that this event is devoted to the 25th anniversary of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination and the preparatory process for the 8th World Water Forum to be held in Brazil in March 2018.
On the first day of the conference, Dr. Abdullaev, Executive Director of CAREC, made a presentation on the possibilities and dynamics of water cooperation in the region.
Central Asia has a large proportion of the drainage basins without a direct link to the ocean. At the same time, the volume and purity of water bodies in the drainage basins are sensitive to various changes in the environment, including climate change. Also, human activities have its influence.
At the same time, there are prerequisites for sustainable transboundary cooperation in the field of water resources in the region today. First, this is the price of inaction in this direction - according to the estimates of the World Bank, by 2020 it will result in a loss of 20 percent of regional gross income. Without comprehensive, holistic and systematic cooperation in the field of water use, serious and fierce water competition may arise that will affect security in the region. One of the decisions is decentralized and basin agreements.
The two-day conference highlighted the following areas:
- Water conservation and integrated water resources management
- Safety of hydraulic structures and emergency prevention in the context of climate change
- Irrigation and irrigated agriculture, agroecology and environmental protection on the waterworks
- Agricultural water supply and irrigation of pastures, use of renewable energy sources
As a result of the work, proceedings of the conference participants were published.