What is the effective approach to Aral Sea governance? Based on the philosophy of ecological protection

Purpose – This article points out that the proper and effective approach to Aral Sea governance is agricultural modernization, while a variety of schemes of "diverting water to Aral Sea" will bring about new environment problems and lead to new ecological crisis.

Methodology – In this research were used case study and comparative study

Originality/Value – The Aral Sea is now mainly induced by extensive agricultural development. Traditional irrigation model excessively consumes the runoff of two rivers in Central Asia, which results in sharp decrease of water injection in Aral Sea. Thus, Aral Sea tends to dry up and atrophy. Seeking solutions for alleviating Aral Sea Crisis and improving Aral Sea governance has become increasingly urgent.

Findings – The solution of reversion of Aral Sea Crisis is the revolution of agriculture itself in Central Asia and complete reversion of the current development model of agriculture in Central Asia. Full implementation of agricultural modernization and implementation of efficient water-saving agriculture and ecological agriculture is the effective approach to alleviate the Aral Sea crisis, the feasibility is testified by the article. 

I.   The Construction of Green Silk Road Economic Belt Facing Aral Sea Governance

The most serious environmental problem in Central Asia is Aral Sea crisis, which severely constrains the exploitation of two advantageous resources in Central Asiaarable land resources and new energy resources and becomes a serious threat to the vital constituents of “five connections” such as traffic trunk, oil and gas pipelines, communication cables, electricity transmission towers and etc. In addition, the Aral Sea crisis acts as the root of some social crisis, the severe deterioration of the Aral Sea basin environment results in ecological migrants, especially, the shortage and uneven distribution of agricultural water leads to intensified water resource disputes and an intensification of social contradiction. The construction of Silk Road Economic Belt cannot be smoothly implemented in a more and more deteriorated ecological environment, and cannot be smoothly sustained in societal environment with latent unrest. Therefore, the “Co-construction of Silk Road Economic Belt” facing Aral Sea crisis, Aral Sea governance is a practical problem facing the construction of Silk Road Economic Belt, if the governance of Aral Sea can be achieved, the contradictions induced by Aral Sea can be alleviated and eliminated accordingly, as a result, the Central Asia can be green hub of Silk Road Economic Belt and support the sustainable development of Silk Road Economic Belt.

Internationally, both the media and the academics pay great attention on Aral Sea Crisis. The ecological changes of Aral Sea have been a long-term focus for scholars of the Soviet Union. In academic journals, such as Journal of Soviet Science Academy: Geography (Известия Академии наук СССР: Серия географическая), The Construction of Water Projects (Гидротехническое строительство) and etc., many related academic papers were published. In 1974, it has already been pointed out that the Aral Sea water level declining cause the changes of ecological system along the south shore of Aral Sea (Кабулов С. К. 1974) [1]. Some scholars revealed that the Aral Sea water level declining began in 1961. They warned that the hydrological and hydrochemistry conditions are changing and they clearly put forward the issue of saving agricultural water (Котляков В.М., 1991 Рамазанов А.М., 2002) [2, 3]. This greatly inspires the research on agricultural water-saving irrigation in this project. A lot of research shows that because of the shrinking of Aral Sea and uncovering of the salt floor, billions of tons of sands and dust are rolled around by the wind, which causes the desertification of surrounding areas. 2 million hectares of farmlands and 15% of pastures have beome deserts. 30-60% of irrigated farmlands have been severely polluted. The amount of highly salinized and alkalized land in Uzbekistan has reached 60% and 80% in central Fergana Valley. It is estimated that the total salt content of Aral Sea is 100×108t (Severskiy I V., 2004; Izrael Y. A, Rovenskiy F., 1990; Glazovsky N. E., 1995; Bakhiev

1. B, Treshkin S. E., 2002; Abdulkasimov H. P, et al., 2003; Han Xu, et al., 2012) [4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9].

Studies have pointed out that the content of mineral increases because of the significant declining of Aral Sea water level. 40g/l is the threshold that causes the disappearing of most fishes and wildlife species (Курочкина Л.Я., Вухрер В.В. 1991)10 .This limit is also an inspiration of this project. Research of some scholars shows that the Aral Sea ecological crisis leads to the multiplied increase of prevalence of kidney disease, liver disease, cancer and respiratory disease among people living aound Aral Sea, meanwhile, the infant mortality rate is 5 times that in the European part of the Soviet Union, which eventually causes ecological emigration (Кесь А. С., 1991; Эльпинер Л. И., Делицын В. М., 1991; Ivanov Y. N., et al. 1996; Yang Shu, Chen Tao, 1998; Yang Shu, Tian Bao, 2002) [11, 12, 13, 14, 15]. Other research shows that the saline-alkali sand storm has reached the glaciers of the Tien Shan mountains and the Pamirs, which accelerates the melting of glaciers (Ginijatullin R. A, 2002) [16]. Some researchers think that if we pay attention to the exploration of the potential in the management and utilization of Aral Sea basin water resources, there is a big chance   to return the Aral Sea water level to the elevation point in 1985, and also restore the ecological environment (Есенов Ш. Е., Сыдыков Ж. С., 1992; Алтунин В. С., 1989) [17, 18]. In 1985, Aral Sea hasn't divided into south and north part. Then returning water level to the elevation point of 1985 means restoring the whole water area. They not only agree that the shrinking of Aral Sea can be restrained, but also think it possible to restore the whole water area of Aral Sea. The basic point of their suggestion is that if we manage the water resouces in the way we manage them in the low flow years, 30 billion cubic meters agricultural water can be saved. This is because that in the normal years, these water resources are wasted on the farmland which actually don't need them due to extensive water resource management. The insights of these scholars are important references of the comprehensive treatment in this project. However these are conclusions 20 years ago, today the hydrology and farmland situation along the Aral Sea have been greatly improved, which means we need to re-evaluate. Existing studies hold the view that the development of two superior resources in Central Asia — cultivated land resource and renewable energy resource are highly restricted by Aral Sea Crisis. Aral Sea Crisis is mainly caused by extensive agricultural development. Thus “retreating water to sea”, which means saving agricultural water and letting it flow to Aral Sea, where it belongs, is the inevitable way to alleviate Aral Sea Crisis. To “retreat water to sea”, achieving agricultural modernization on a large scale in Central Asia is necessary (Xu Haiyan 2014; Xu Haiyan 2014 [19, 20]. 

II.    The Ecological Problems Arising from Diversified Schemes of “Diverting Caspian Sea to Aral Sea”

The Aral Sea Crisis is a problem which attracts attention worldwide, since 1980s, scholars have proposed plenty of schemes for broadening new sources and reducing consumption, among them, the diversified schemes of “diverting water to Aral Sea” are most attractive, including “diverting water from the North to the South”, “diverting Caspian Sea to Aral Sea”, “diverting water from the South to the North” and so on, the common feature of these schemes is the huge size of entire project, the environmental effect of these projects has been not testified strictly, and their feasibility is in question.

The project of “diverting Caspian Sea to Aral Sea” attempts to divert sea water to a high-evaporation area. The annual evaporation amount in Aral Sea region is 1000 cc, the area is 66 thousand square kilometers, and the amount of annual evaporation water is 66 billion cubic meters. In order to make the balance of water, annually, 66 billion of sea water is needed to be diverted from Caspian Sea to Aral Sea, then, the water will be fully evaporated and the salt it contains will be left. It is not difficult to calculate the amount of salt added to Aral Sea, the average salinity of Aral Sea is 12 g/l; the total amount of salt 66 billion sea water contains is 792 million ton. 

That is to say, annually 792 million ton will be left, the amount of full water of Aral Sea is 1000 billion cubic meters, if 792 million ton salt added per year, the salinity of Aral Sea will be raised by 12g/l every fifteen years, the salinity of Aral Sea will be 40g/l and reach the limit. If the salinity increases continuously, the biological population in Aral Sea cannot adapt to the environment gradually, and tend to disappear or distinct. The salinity of “Dead Sea” in West Asia is 230g/l, the salinity of Aral Sea will catch up with that of Dead Sea in West Asia two hundred years later, Aral Sea will be the “man-made” Dead Sea in Central Asia. As a result, it is “diverting salt” to destroy Aral Sea and the ecological environment in Central Asia, rather than diverting water to Aral Sea, this result would be counterproductive, “diverting Caspian Sea to Aral Sea” will not bring about ecological improvement, “diverting Caspian Sea to Aral Sea” has negative ecological effect and it is ecological disaster and not desirable. Furthermore, Aral Sea is more than 80 meters higher than Caspian Sea and across the Ustyurt Plateau, multi-level large pumping stations are needed, the quantity of construction work surpasses that of project of “diverting water from the South to the North” in the downstream of Yangtze River in China. The environmental change by such huge project has not been assessed yet.

"Diverting water from the North to the South", it means diverting more than 70 million water from   the upstream of Ob River of West Siberia River to Aral Sea, the enormous ecological and environmental consequence of diverting almost a quarter of Ob River is equally disastrous. For the first few years, when Russian sold fresh water for profits and re-proposed the scheme of “diverting water from the North to the South”, it received a fierce opposition which argued that it was a serious damage to the ecology of Ob River, in this regard, a negative conclusion can be reached to the scheme of “diverting water from the North to the South”. The river is 2400 kilometers, 14 billion cubic meters of earth is need, if they are connected by one cubic meter of earth by one cubic meter earth, and the length can across the whole earth surface for 350 times, the quantity of construction is astonishing. In terms of “diverting water from the South to the North”, means diverting water from India River, the runoff of India River is only half of Ob River, the consequence of environmental disaster is imaginable. Hereof, the difficulty in implementation of transnational projects is excluded. From the perspective of ecological protection, these schemes lack feasibility.

Moreover, “diverting water to Aral Sea” is not necessary, because Central Asia is not a water shortage area. According to the “Water Stress Index” proposed by Swedish hydrologist M. Falken Mark, a area that average per capita water resources is less than or equal to 1000 cubic meters is a deficient water area, a area that average per capita water resources is over 1700 cubic meters is a rich water area(regional or individual shortage of water). The annual runoff of inland rivers in Central Asia is 124.62 billion cubic meters, the population in Central Asia is 661.365 million, the per capita of ground runoff in Central Asia is 1884.28 cubic meters, which not only exceeds the boundary of water shortage as 1000 cubic meters, but also more than the threshold value of “rich water’ index as 1700 cubic meters. The runoff of two rivers in Central Asia is 104.02 billion cubic meters, the population is 52.9044 million, and the average per capita water in two rivers in Central Asia is 1966.19 cubic meters, which is higher than that of Central Asia. According to the index proposed by M. Falken Mark, Central Asia, two rivers region in Central Asia is not water-deficient area. 

III.    The Green Scheme of Aral Sea Governance Is to Achieve “Retreating Water to Sea” Through Agricultural Modernization

1. The scheme of “retreating water to sea” is scientific and The proposed philosophy of “retreating water to sea” is scientific. 

First of all, during the interpretation of remote image data of farmland in Central Asia, the Soviet Union scholar Yeshernoff III. E has found something such as managing utilization of water resources of normal year according to “dry year” which can reduce 30 billion cubic meters of agricultural water loss. It is the potential that arises from water management, it is the cheapest water-saving measure and it is achievable as long as water management is well-done.

Secondly, in 2003 China’s Xinjiang Construction Corps in Tajikistan has conducted demonstration experiment of “drip irrigation technology under film”, which can save more than 60% water compared with local conventional irrigation technology and get official approval by Tajikistan government and get promoted in Central Asia. The amount of agricultural irrigation water from Aral Sea Basin is about 80 billion cubic meters, if technology of drip irrigation under film can be applied in two-thirds arable land, 32 billion cubic meters of agriculture water can be saved.

62 billion cubic meters of agricultural water can be saved through above two measures, which have exceeded the injection water of 56 billion from two rivers in Central Asia to Aral Sea when Aral Sea has not been shrunk in 1960s, thus these two measures can ensure the effect of “retreating water to sea”.

Furthermore, according to a conservative estimate, the exploitable ground water of two rivers in Central Asia is 10 billion cubic meters, with application of technology of drip irrigation under film, irrigation effect of 25 billion cubic meters can be played. The total saved water through above three measures is 87 billion cubic meters, if it is added to Aral Sea, the shrinking status of Aral Sea could be curbed, and gradual restoration to previous water basin can be expected.

2. The “filling-drying-filling” circle is a cyclical phenomenon in the evolution of Aral

On 23 June, 2013, deputy director of Institute of Oceanography of Russia Academy, Gio Yavi Rolf solemnly declared at presidium meeting that “Aral Sea has stabilized, water balance has been reached”. It indicates that Aral Sea will enter into next filling period, “retreating water to sea” timely catch up with this opportunity and it is a kind of adaptation and fitting to this natural process. Therefore, “retreating water to sea” is not a mandatory behavior.

3. The governance of North Aral Sea in Kazakhstan has provided a case regarding partial success of “retreating water to sea”.

Under the financial support by World Bank, Kazakhstan has constructed a Aral Sea dam with total length of 13 kilometers, which separates the North Aral Sea from South Aral Sea for governance, adding water injection to North Aral Sea through controlling agricultural water, and improving the seepage prevention construction of Syr Darya River, effectively reducing the water loss along the river, the water amount of North Sea has been increased by 68% in 2008, the coastline that once extended to 75 kilometers has retreated to  58 kilometers which is only 17 kilometers away from the original coastline. According the data disclosed by NASA, the water level of North Aral Sea has been largely restored. It can be considered as a partial experiment of “retreating water to sea” and a more convincing case to this scheme. Certainly, the proposed “retreating water to sea’ is based on the technology of drip irrigation under film, it is precise and efficient.

4. Theschemeof“retreatingwatertosea” ishighlyconsistentwiththeimplementationof“Kazakhstan-2050” strategy [21].

The “retreating water to sea” is on the basis of efficient water-saving agriculture, achievement of efficient water-saving agriculture is the only way that leads to agricultural modernization, which is emphasized     by “Kazakhstan-2050” strategy (hereinafter referred to as “2050 strategy”). “2050 strategy” is a strategic transition of Kazakhstan economic development, a development strategic transition from “rejuvenating country by oil and gas” to “enriching country by agriculture”, which gives highly attention to agriculture modernization and water-saving agriculture, and put forward “must achieve large-scale agriculture modernization”, “comprehensive application of various water-saving technologies to agro industrial complex”, “introduction of most advanced technology of underground water acquisition and water-saving”, “to solve farmland irrigation problems by 2040” and so on, which are highly consistent with “retreating water to sea”. Therefore, application of “retreating water to sea” to Aral Sea governance is the specific actions of implementation of “2050 strategy” [21]. 

IV.   Summary

The theory of “retreating water to sea” is scientific. Agricultural modernization and the consequent “retreating water to sea” scheme are pragmatic ways for countries in Central Asia to develop their agriculture. “Retreating water to sea” is a payment of the old debt, and also a reverse compensation for the shrinking   of Aral Sea. If the massive opening up of the land in Central Asia since the middle 20th century and the extensive irrigation system can be seen as the start of the accelerating of Aral Sea shrinking, then today, as countries in Central Asia have begun to realize the Aral Sea Crisis, controlling agricultural water through agricultural modernization should be the solid start of Aral Sea governance. Aral Sea governance cannot be achieved without agriculture modernization in Central Asia. Agriculture modernization in Central Asia is bound to gradually promote the Aral Sea governance. Meanwhile, with gradually getting restored, Aral Sea provides the agriculture modernization and the development of renewable energy in Central Asia with a good ecological environment; the development of renewable energy in Central Asia also offers strong support to agriculture modernization in Central Asia and Aral Sea governance. Agriculture modernization in Central Asia, development of renewable energy and Aral Sea governance support and promote each other and together they form a three-point supporting system for Green Silk Road Economic Belt. Therefore, the social functions of “retreating water to sea” can be concluded as following:

1. “Retreating water to sea” will facilitate the water level of Aral Sea to get restored to certain level, greatly improve the ecological environment in Central Asia, curb the attacks of dust storms to the traffic trunk, and avail to the implementation of “Bright Road” new economic It is conducive to construct Central Asia into a green transition hub in Silk Road Economic Belt; it is beneficial to the sustainable development of Silk Road Economic Belt, and beneficial to the co-construction of community of destiny of China-Central Asia.
2. Fundamentally speaking, it will improve conditions of developing renewable energy in Central Asia; give a boost to Central Asia to become the base of renewable energy
3. “Retreating water to sea” provides a new approach to sub-regional cooperation of China-Central Asia, China can avail of efficient water-saving technologies such as drip irrigation under film, while Kazakhstan can take advantages of arable land, both of them could carry out long-term technology cooperation in water-saving agriculture.
4. “Retreating water to sea” pursues the goal of maximization of agriculture control, which will largely alleviate the contradiction of water consumption and disputes of water resources in Central Asia, and it is beneficial to the social stability in Central Asia. It is suggested that establishing expert arrangement under bilateral regular meeting mechanism of China-Kazakhstan Environment Cooperation Committee, specifically discussing related scientific technology issues regarding implementation of “retreating water to sea” and putting them into practice.
5. “Retreating water to sea” will improve the ecological environment in Central Asia, meanwhile the agriculture will get ecologically developed.
6. The achievement of agriculture modernization in Central Asia will substantially increase the grain yields in Central Asia, Silk Road energy channel will be international food channel as well, which makes contribution to alleviate world food crisis.

References  (Endnotes)

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