20 August 2012: The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) joined forces with Aalto University, Finland, to produce a special issue of the International Journal of Water Resources Development on the subject of Water and Security in Central Asia. The special issue highlights water challenges faced in the region, including the drying of the Aral Sea and the breakup of the Soviet Union, which made much of the regional water infrastructure transboundary.

While authors in the issue highlight that innovative transboundary cooperation is taking place at small scales, the water-food-energy nexus remains challenging due to conflicts of national interests, which pit hydropower production upstream against irrigation downstream.

The special issue includes an editorial “Water and Security in Central Asia – Solving a Rubik’s Cube” and articles on: Nouns and Numbers of the Water-Energy-Security Nexus in Central Asia; Regional Options for Addressing the Water, Energy and Food Nexus in Central Asia and the Aral Sea Basin; The Major Central Asian River Basins – An Assessment of Vulnerability; The Role of Virtual Water Flows in Physical Water Scarcity – The Case of Central Asia; Principles of Transboundary Water Resources Management and Water-Related Agreements in Central Asia; Water Quantity and Quality in the Zerafshan River Basin; A Programme Theory Approach in Measuring Impacts of Irrigation Management Transfer Interventions; Meso-Level Cooperation on Transboundary Tributaries and Infrastructure in the Ferghana Valley; Is It Possible to Shift Hydrological Boundaries? The Ferghana Valley Meshed System; and Challenges and Opportunities for Transboundary Water Cooperation in Central Asia – Findings from the UN Economic Commission for Europe’s (UNECE) Regional Assessment and Project Work. [IWMI Press Release]