Trends of Irrigation Development in the Kyrgyz Republic Within the Context of Climate Change

Abstract

The climatic change hazard in the Kyrgyz Republic is the potential reduction of mountain runoff to rivers. This is because agriculture, a basis of state economy, depends on irrigation water from mountainous rivers. The current shortage in surface water resources provides a motivation for increasing the irrigation system efficiency and use of ground waters for irrigation. The surface and ground waters of intermountain valleys of Kyrgyzstan are interdependent. The efficiency improvement of irrigation systems reduces recharge of ground waters and, from the point of view of their budget, is the same as using ground waters for irrigation. These factors reduce flow of ground waters into downstream areas, where they discharge into surface water sources. That is, the replenishment of surface water resources at the expense of ground waters leads to reduction of surface and ground water resources in the underlying areas. This paper shows demonstrates the mentioned process occurs but with a long time delay. The periods of delay may be more than 20 years, giving time for the introduction of agriculture technologies intended for use of smaller quantities of water. The equations suggested here can be used for similar calculations in other intermountain valleys of Central Asia.