Battered Waters
Water Mismanagement in Central Asia
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan
The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s left the countries of Central Asia struggling with environmental issues and a lack of coordination around the water they shared. In urgency to address the region's water crisis and visualize water management problems, I traveled to four countries in Central Asia, where upstream Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan control the flow of this region's two major rivers into Uzbekistan and water-thirsty Kazakhstan. The 67 million people living in the landlocked area of Central Asia, which is about the size of Europe, depend on its rivers and glaciers for the precious resource of water. At the same time, the changing climate increases the challenges facing all four nations. This project tells the narrative of the environmental problems in this often-overlooked region, through its people and nature, in consequences of climate change already happening.
