Aral Sea: left 2014 and right 2000, 1960 extent black line

    Environmental situation Troubled legacy from decades of exploitation

    Uzbekistan faces many environmental problems and there is still little public awareness of the issues.

    For example: agriculture, one of the most important sectors of the country’s economy, was for a long time mainly limited to the monocropping of cotton. The cotton plantations required huge amounts of water – a resource that is in very limited supply in this Central Asian country. Most of the water needed for these plantations was diverted from the country’s main rivers, particularly from the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya. Both rivers flow into the Aral Sea. Once the fourth largest inland sea in the world and covering an area nearly as big as Bavaria in Germany, the Aral Sea is now almost completely dried up.

    The intensive use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers is also contaminating the soil and drinking water in many regions. Furthermore, the increased demand for food, generated by Uzbekistan’s rapid population growth, is leading to overgrazing, soil degradation⁠ and uncontrolled deforestation. Lax controls of pollutant emissions caused by industry and traffic, and inadequate treatment of sewage and refuse, are all having a very detrimental environmental impact on Uzbekistan’s cities.


    Moving towards more sustainability

    The issue of environmental sustainability is beginning to attract more political attention in Uzbekistan. Among other things, the government wants to significantly increase the share of renewables in power production and, above all, harness the huge potential offered by solar energy more effectively.

    The country has also started diversifying its agriculture and taking steps to prevent land degradation. These steps include making better use of available water resources, replanting forests and managing pastureland more sustainably. Uzbekistan has formed a knowledge network with its neighbours Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan to share successful solutions in these fields.

    Since 2016, Uzbekistan has also increasingly been playing a lead role in balancing interests and deepening regional cooperation in Central Asia. Most recently, for example, the Uzbek government hosted the Global Gateway Conference in November 2022, which brought together EU and Central Asia representatives.

    One concern that has a high priority in this region, especially affected as it is by the consequences of climate change, is reaching a mutual agreement for using the dwindling water resources. In the Aral Sea basin, the challenge is to find a sustainable way of balancing the conflicting user interests (drinking water, irrigated agriculture, hydropower) and to strengthen the regional organisations involved in this task.

    Here, the BMZ is supporting the states along the shores of the Aral Sea as part of a regional approach with projects that offer advisory services. These projects are increasingly concentrating on coordinated, climate-smart resource management.

    As at: 16/06/2025