The Ferghana valley is the most fertile, densely populated region in the whole of Central Asia. The valley, straddled by three countries -- Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan -- is home for 10.5 million people. 60% of the combined populations of all three countries is defined as poor, living on or below $500 per year. As with all five states in the region, the boundaries that join the three at the Ferghana Valley are former administrative boundaries. Only since post-Soviet independence have these boundaries become state borders. As border demarcation between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan remains uncertain, those borders that might intersect waterways (eg, Kirki Dong and Koprovadskoe reservoirs) remain sources of contention. Such tensions are further compounded by the increased militarisation of the borders in the Ferghana area following the 1999 and 2000 military incursions of the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan.

Background: The richness of the Ferghana Valley is only equaled by its range of vulnerabilities. Poor water management, lack of any substantive attention to environmental degradation and conventional as well as industrial related health epidemics plague the valley. In the past, natural resources caused tensions and insecurity, with water depletion, deterioration and related issues causing cross-border disputes which intensify already strained ethnic tensions. High demographic pressures on limited land resources coincide with a lack of jobs and economic prospects, furthering public discontent, as witnessed recently in Osh and Jalal-Abad, two major Kyrgyz cities in the valley.

Industrial activities present a challenge, in particular where pollution crosses borders such as between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Active mines and smelters are important sources of national and local revenue.  Many of them are, however, located near state borders and present a continuous source of discontent. Closed industrial sites are badly managed, schools and houses sprawl into former industrial areas such as the closed uranium mine in Taboshar, Tajikistan. The legacy of Soviet-era uranium mining is a region-wide source of public anxiety.

All these factors are further compounded by natural disasters and climate change which increasingly affects the environmental and thus security situation. As noted by UNEP, a land-slide in April 2005 at Mailuu-Suu in Kyrgyzstan passing just next to a major area of Uranium waste storage is a fresh reminder of the interaction between environmental degradation and the residue of outmoded means of industrial production.

Crisis drivers:

[i]   demographic shifts. The Ferghana Valley is the most populous area in Central Asia, representing about 20% of Central Asia’s population -- including 50% of Kyrgyzstan’s population, 31% of Tajikistan’s population and 27% of Uzbekistan’s. Between 1959 and 1989 the population of the basin states increased by 140% and is expected to increase by 33% again by 2020. Population density is extremely high in the Uzbek part of the Ferghana Valley as compared to those of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. High population densities increase the risk of natural resource depletion, and are seen as a key factor in growing tensions in the region.

Population density is further exacerbated by the numbers of different ethnic groupings and clashes between ostensibly secular and Islamic authorities in the area. As opposed, however, to other regions considered for this study, the Ferghana Valley is witnessing a return to rural areas and a decline in urbanisation;

[ii]  water management failures. There are three main issues that point to water management failures in the Ferghana Valley. The first has to do with access to water, the second concerns water quality and the third revolves around the issue of raising groundwater.  The problem of water access has several dimensions, but two of particular importance concern: [a] rivalries between petroleum rich downstream states who need water for large commercial farms and those less well-endowed upstream states that need to control water for hydro-electrical power; and [b] tensions between large-scale commercial farms and the rapid emergence of small farming plots. Both generate considerable ethnic animosities. Water quality, a second issue of major concern, involves the seepage of contaminated soil (linked to irrigated agriculture, pesticides, nitrates and strontium) and a wide variety of industrial toxins along with unregulated sewage. Thirdly, the lack of capacity on all sides of the valley to control water means that water-logging and groundwater problems destroy agricultural fields and housing;

[iii] environmental degradation. In the Ferghana Valley water and agricultural sectors are likely to be the most sensitive to climate change-induced impacts. Even though regional climate change scenarios are still uncertain, the likely consequence will be a significant shortage of water resources associated with significant increases in surface air temperature (IPCC,2001/ENVSEC, 2004).

Rapidly rising populations and return movements to rural areas explain the persistent destruction underway of forests on the hillsides and lowland pasturelands that both border the valley. Inhabitants of those areas depend to a large extent upon the resources put under pressure by the increasing numbers of new settlers. In this context, environmental disputes can be easily instrumentalised using ethnic identities as a marker and a divider. Limited land availability has another impact: because ofpopulation pressure and scarce resources all available lands are utilized for agricultural purposes also those areas rich in endemic and endangered species. Moreover, pipelines, roads, electricity lines, mining and processing industries are all factors contributing to the loss of biodiversity in the region.       

Rising temperatures could have a devastating effect on the area in terms of flooding in the form of very large mudslides and floods caused by outbreak of mountain lakes. As has happened in the past (e.g. Shakhimardan River, 1998) warm weather melts snow and glaciers causing a flood wave that breaks open successive mountain lakes.  There are an estimated 238 mountain lakes in the Kyrgyz Republic that threaten Uzbekistan.  Ikhnach Lake in the basin of the Pskem, which retains 5.8million cubic meters of water, is seen as a risk not only because it could flood the Pskem valley but because its strike wave would endanger Charvak dam.

In addition, there is a major risk that toxic wastes will be swept up in certain areas. In May 2002, a landslide slid across the path of the Maili-Suu River. Had the river been entirely barricaded, the over-spilling water would have inundated radioactive dumps located alongside the river.  The resulting radioactive mudslide would have travelled through the Ferghana Valley to the Aral Sea. Directly at risk was the 96,560 kilometre square Ferghana irrigation network between the Tian Shan and Pamir-Alai mountain ranges.

[iv] epidemics and disease. Compared to the rest of Central Asia, the Ferghana Valley is relatively positive in most overall health statistics. In terms of overall mortality, death from infectious diseases, infant mortality and mortality from all forms of cancers, the valley is significantly better than most other parts of the region (UNEP-GRID Arendal). That said, typhoid, malaria and hepatitis trends are increasing as living conditions in the valley decline (ENVSEC, 2004). The health situation is clearly threatened by industrial operations in the region which are carried out with limited environmental or public health concerns, and the results have been an accumulation of pollutants in the local environment. The Soviet Union had used the Ferghana Valley as one of the main sources of uranium ores, and it is well documented that “there were protection dams were washed away and radio-nuclides entered several of the valley’s rivers and reservoirs. Only recently Tajikistan started to approach international organisations on the issue of radioactive waste deposits. Uzbekistan has so far adopted a lower profile in raising international attention to this issue. Uzbekistan has a joint commission with Kyrgyzstan that primarily deals with Mayluu Suu, and the Uzbek state of the environment report from 2001 confirms the concern over the question of nuclear waste (UNEP/GRID-ARENDAL, 2003).

[v] conflict. Conflict is endemic to the valley. In light of intense ethnic divides and the increasingly fierce competition for resources, the potential for explosions are clearly evident. The fact that except for one series of incidents in 1999 and 2000 there has been no serious violence in the valley has been the result, according to the ENVSEC,2004 report, of the ability of ruling elites to find accommodation and also – perhaps paradoxically – upon the calming influence of Islam to provide stability and restraint.

Nevertheless, a study on causes of conflict, though focused on Sub-Saharan Africa, indicates a relationship between rural population density, negative changes in rainfall, and increasing likelihood of conflict that is relevant to the Ferghana Valley.  The Ferghana Valley is facing a multiplicity of challenges that will inevitably increase the competition for ever scarce resources.  At the same time, there is little sign that the ethnic tensions that pervade so many of the communities in the Valley are abating, and these tensions when combined with resource competition could prove to be an explosive mix. 

Potential shocks: Direct military action or terrorist acts directed against strategic objects such as dams (eg, Papan in the Osh region, Toktogul reservoir, Lake Sarez in Tajikistan) could have disastrous consequences for the Ferghana Valley and Central Asia. The flood of water, for example, from the Papan dam that was breeched would not only saturate agricultural areas and intensify salinisation, but would also expose the industrial/nuclear wastage sites that have been developed so close to the valley’s main rivers.  A similar situation could be brought about by the natural bursting of a glacial lake, bringing about a similar range of hazard effects.  The trans-boundary nature of such an event could equally exacerbate ethnic tensions. 

Numbers affected:

[i]   A glacial lake outbreak would affect around 20,000 people directly       

[ii]  A mudslide/flood triggered by the same event leading to radioactive waste reaching irrigation systems could affect up to 24 million people in the Ferghana Valley