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Water resource planning and management are undergoing a paradigm shift. Historically, rivers have been viewed as communities to be exploited to the maximum extent possible for economic development. Water resource planning has primarily been an engineering exercise to achieve the optimum development of river basins for hydropower, flood control and consumptive use. Throughout the world, countries have constructed large-scale multiplepurpose dams and irrigation systems. Both international and domestic water law has supported optimum development by (1) creating semi-exclusive national rights to divert and store water and (2) and encouraging unilateral national water resources development.Water management meant the enforcement of existing entitlements and adherence to the original project purposes. The traditional vision of a river system of a commodity to be put to the optimum or maximum use remains the dominant paradigm in many parts of the world such as China, Central Asia, India and other areas as a matter of choice or necessity. However, the traditional paradigm is slowly being replaced by the alternative paradigm of ecologically sustainable development (ESD).

Water allocation management in areas of such critical water deficit as the Aral Sea basin has always presented many complex problems. It requires the coordination of the water demands of all users within the basin with the restrictions imposed by the water supply regime. The water users in the basin include irrigated agriculture, industry, drinking water suppliers, hydropower, fish husbandry, ecosystem protection, recreation and flood control measures.

In this paper I would like to share my vision of the particular characteristics of the system of integrated trans-boundary water resources management in the Amudarya river basin, based on my experiences as Director of BWO “Amudarya.”. Water resources in Central Asia are drawn primarily from the basins of the two largest Central Asian rivers, the Amudarya river and the Syrdarya river. These two rivers providewater to the populations of five states: Kazakhstan; Kyrgyzstan; Tajikistan; Turkmenistan; and Uzbekistan. For the purposes of this paper, I wish to concentrate principally on the Amudarya river basin.

As a solution to the global water crisis, Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) , combines management based on hydrographic principles, comprehensiveness, recognition of different interests, coordination of all hierarchic levels, consensus, interdependence, and wide involvement of water users. Integration suggests interconnection between natural systems—water resources quantity and quality—and the social systems that define water demand and disposal, pollution control and social sustainability.

According to the results of the analysis carried out at the initial project phase, for IWRM–Ferghana system, a hierarchical water and land resources management structure reflecting both the present water relations and information flows formed within the framework of the project being implemented was recommended. Ferghana Valley basin management level including BWO information contacts was accepted as an upper management hierarchy level. At the second hierarchy level, there are large irrigation systems and separate canals ( LSC ) that are subordinate to BWO management level and provide bulk transfer and distribution ofwater resources among diverse WUAs and private farms. The following hierarchy level is Water User Association ( WUA ), defined as an independent water management unit that sets water resources limits on water intakes and controls water supply in the context of canals and administrative areas. As a lower management hierarchy level, separate private farm level was accepted where crop pattern and soil salinity conditions, irrigation technique and technical condition of on-farm irrigation and collector-drainage network were identified.

Due to Aral Sea area reduction and a volume decrease of one-sixth in just 40 years, we have become eyewitnesses to a real ecological crisis, which has impacted upon millions of people living in this region and beyond. The Aral Sea basin has ceased to be an enormous natural conditioner that kept back cold airflow from the north and cooled air from south. Over the last years, the desertification process has covered more than 4 million hectares of land, whilst landscapes adjacent to the Amudarya and Syrdarya River deltas have been strongly impacted.

The urgency of the problem of efficient water resources use and protection has been growing with every passing year, in countries across the world, as a result of population growth and increasing industrial and agricultural production volumes, accompanied by the expansion of irrigated agriculture.

The Central-Asian region, including five former Soviet republics, is located in an arid zone with severe freshwater scarcity. Settlements and irrigated lands along the major rivers (Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya), in both midstream and downstream sectors, face acute water deficits, even in humid years. The region’s economy is mostly agrarian. Nearly 70% of the population live in rural areas and their well being is determined by agricultural production. In turn, agriculture depends on water resources and their effective utilization.

Forecasting future development in any region is a very complicated process, even in developed societies. Although past trends can be used as the basis for predicting the future, combinations of trends can cause qualitative changes in predicted trends and trend dynamics (see, for example, D. Forester). Forecasting under transitional economic conditions (as is the case in the Aral Sea Basin) is more complicated as the political systems are changing and environmental degradation is increasing. It is, therefore, almost impossible to forecast the definite future conditions of the five Central Asian States which used to be under the tough political control of the USSR, or of their unpredictable neighbor, Afghanistan.

No one needs to be convinced that water is a source and sustainer of life, a guarantee of purity and health, a base of production, an energy producer and one of our most basic needs without which nature cannot survive. Water is one of the fundamental driving forces of sustainable development and it is to the benefit of humanity that it is a renewable resource. However, we are not always its wise consumers and users. Despite multipurpose water use and its multilateral involvement in all spheres of human activity, it has traditionally been perceived in a narrow and specialized manner, leading to dispersed management of its different functions, isolated actions without consideration of other uses for water and frequent misunderstanding of the complex impact and consequences of water use. An understanding of water’s importance came to humanity in the last quarter of the twentieth century, and even then not universally but to certain groups and users. But the road from understanding to action is a long one, with many obstacles and destabilizing factors along the way.