Will Climate Change Exacerbate or Mitigate Water Stress in Central Asia?

Millions of people in the geopolitically important region of Central Asia de-pend on water from snow and glacier melt driven international rivers, most of all the Syr Darya and Amu Darya. The riparian countries of these rivers have experienced recurring water allocation conflicts ever since the Soviet Union collapsed. Will climate change exacerbate water stress and thus conflicts? We have developed a coupled climate – land ice – rainfall – runoff model for the Syr Darya to quantify impacts and show that climatic changes are likely to have a major consequences on runoff seasonality due to earlier snow melt. This will increase water stress because less water will be available for irriga-tion in the summer months. Threats from geohazards, above all glacier lake 1 outbursts, are likely to increase as well. The area at highest risk is the densely populated, agriculturally productive, and politically unstable Fergana Valley. Major international initiatives to improve water management institutions and infrastructure are required