Research report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Research report - Essay Example Prior to the split up, the entire central Asian region fell under administration of Moscow. Moscow’s administration had structured mechanisms meant to ensure equitable distribution of water and energy resources within the region (Murodbek 261). However, independence from Soviet Union ushered in unprecedented challenges to the nations under consideration. Main rivers supplying domestic and agricultural water to the five nations originate from mountain ranges within Tajikistan and the neighboring Kyrgyzstan, and then flows downstream through the other remaining three nations and finally drains into Aral Sea. From a rational perspective, the two nations within the upstream region should ensure undisrupted flow of water to nations lying on the downstream region. On the other hand, downstream nations are rich in oil and gas energy sources. This means that they will return the undisrupted water supply favor by pumping oil and gas to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan (Murodbek 261). This pla n worked efficiently under the Soviet Union administration before secession of Central Asian sovereign territories. Despite the fact that this resource sharing strategy sounds simple and logical, current state of affairs between the nations involved does not conform to this strategy. Consequently, lack of conformance to equitable sharing of resources has led to technical hitches within economic, social and political relationships between nations in the entire region. As an illustrative example, generation of hydro-electric power by nations in the upstream region like Tajikistan as met vehement disapproval from downstream counterparts (Murodbek 263). At this juncture, this essay will develop a comprehensive analysis on causes and effects of the water-energy crisis. In addition, an extrapolation of the theme will examine existence of similar problems in other nations around the globe. Nations lying within the upstream section of Central Asia, especially Tajikistan engages in intensive agricultural activities as their main economic activities. In the recent past, necessity to expand the nation’s economic sector led to expansion of agriculture through irrigation. As a result, Tajikistan diverted large volumes of water from the two main rivers serving the region into the irrigated tracks of land. This increased supply of water to farms was not going to be seasonal. The huge tracks of land lie within an arid and semi-desert regions of the nation. This means that irrigation requires sustained amount of water supply to meet agricultural production demands. In this case, extensive irrigation of cotton and wheat farms remained as the central economic activity in the lower part of Tajikistan (Murodbek 263). In addition, other nations including Kazakhstan tapped river water in the middle of flowing channels conveyed them directly to their farms. In this regard, every nation tried to expand its agricultural sector by utilizing the only available water from the two m ain river channels. Consequently, this caused a pronounced shortage of total water flowing down stream. This means that economic and social activities of people living within the affected nations would experience difficulties (Murodbek 265). At this juncture, expansion of irrigation fed agriculture featured as one of the main cause in the water-energy crisis in Central Asian region. Apart from irrigation, energy generation through hydro-electricity played a significant role in causing the water-energy