Water towers of humankind research perspectives on hydraulic resources and future development in High Asia

The wealth of hydraulic resources stored in glaciated high mountain regions disguises the fact that water management within arid mountain areas can be quite complex and characterized by deficiency symptoms. Scarcity of available water resources could be explained from different systems properties such as ecology, agricultural practices, socio-economic set-up and experiences with resource utilization. External forces and fields of conflict tend to modify the framework. The systematic approach is projected on the conditions in arid high mountain regions and the prevalent forms of agricultural practices there.

section_content: The "International Year of Freshwater Resources" 2003 was announced by the United Nations following an application and suggestion by the Government of Tajikistan. Although the "projected water scarcity" map (Fig. 1 ) of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in Colombo shows Tajikistan in a position of little or no water scarcity the water issue is a very valid one for Tajikistan. During the Soviet period Tajikistan was identified as a poor republic which could supply only natural hydraulic resources to the economy of the Soviet Union. Large scale projects were laid out and the water of the two major Central Asian rivers, Amu Darya (Pjandsh, Oxus) and Syr Darya (Jaxartes), was directed to the extensive irrigation projects close by the Aral Lake. The second option was generating hydro-electricity through a cascade of nine major dams and lakes of which Nurek dam at the Vansh river was accomplished and Rogun is still under construction. Tajikistan was meant to be a sole supplier of water and related products to neighbouring republics. Irrigation and water management within the Pamir mountain valleys was neglected. Presently Tajikistan has become aware of its valuable hydraulic resources and realizes that domestic water use is an issue of national and regional interest. The "water towers of humankind", i. e. the ice-covered mountain ranges of High Asia, have come into international focus. The IWMI map (cf. In order to study environmental and societal change in mountain regions the organization of water-user communities, their rules and regulations in a given watershed and conflicts among different groups give an important perspective on these processes (cf. Kreutzmann 2000b). Before entering this field the interrelationship of socio-economic parameters with environmental ones has to be highlighted. Frequently a discussion of hydraulic resources within mountain areas restricts itself to the natural features and its quantitative properties. For an assessment of the development potential within water communities the perspective has to be broadened.
section_name: INTRODUCTION

section_content: The inhabitants of arid and semi-arid mountain regions depend on irrigated agriculture to a substantial degree in order to safeguard their survival within their high-altitude habitat. Different approaches to the utilization of local water resources can be observed in remote regions. Some of the most ingenious and highly sophisticated decentralised irrigation systems form the basis of communal life at the upper limit of human habitations (Kreutzmann 1999). The expertise about the techniques and social frameworks is normally unrecorded and only common knowledge to the user communities. This systematic approach has been tested in different case studies in the Karakoram and Himalayan ranges and given results which have shown the importance and necessity of interdisciplinary cooperation in studying complex systems. Only a few aspects should be highlighted here. For our brief discussion four examples have been selected from predominantly agricultural relevance.
section_name: Observations and sensitizations

section_name: Embedded in local oral

section_content: There remains the popular error that water shortage does not occur for decentralized small-farmer irrigation systems in a mountain environment where only 1 % of the available land is cultivated. In that case there should be sufficient resources to irrigate those few terraces properly throughout the year. This assessment holds true especially for the Karakoram where we find the most extensive glaciation outside the polar regions. Nevertheless even here water scarcity is well-known and affects the selection of crops. Traditional crops well-adapted to high mountain conditions have remained barley, wheat, millet and peas (Fig. 3 ). They compose the traditional set while potatoes, beans and maize have been introduced much later. Seasonal water availability: Even by selecting these low-demanding crops water deficiency is a well-known feature in the Karakoram. We find an irrigation schedule which is characterized by scarcity and surplus periods (Fig. 4 ). The system of properties are understood it is not necessarily obvious what kind of development potential remains (Fig. 5 ). The amount of water available in the growing season governs the development potential of areal expansion and increase of productivity. Here
section_name: Crop water requirements:

section_name: Jan

section_content: Even when these we find the specific case where the FAO experts promised to build a channel and subsequently double the cultivated land of a village. The only flaw was that there was only surplus water for a very short period as all water was already allocated through traditional water rights. No single hectare of land There is some paradox in his statement, basically it is a system everybody knows but which is nowhere written down and only because of this researchers run into difficulties because they do not know it themselves. We can find these features of irrigation societies in many mountain irrigation networks and as well in High Asia. The set-up reveals the complexity of a system that seems to be rather easily understood on first sight.
section_name: Seasonality and deficiency.

section_content: The existence of locally invented irrigation systems within the harsh mountain environment has been neglected over long periods due to the attribution of backwardness and limited growth orientation towards remote valley societies. Only within the last decade awareness has substantially grown and a deficiency on accessible information about their cultural and socio-economic foundations is ubiquitous. In recent years development agencies implementing integrated rural development programmes try to build on local knowledge and emphasize cooperation with farmers in order to serve their felt needs. In sum, there appears to be an increasing demand to understand the complexity of locally adapted irrigation systems and the connected societies which could serve as a nucleus for regional development involving a shift from big-scale projects to decentralised activities. One has to keep in mind that complexity and variety within the mountain habitat form one of its principal features.
section_name: Conclusions for further research

section_name: REFERENCES