Rational water consumption in focus at global forum in Sweden
The reutilization of wastewater and increased access to improved sanitation will help the Central Asian region to cope with the adverse effects of climate change and address a number of issues in the rational use of water resources – this idea became a key part of the statement by Executive Director of the Regional Environmental Center for Central Asia Iskandar Abdullayev on the World Water Week, hosted by Stockholm from 28 August to 1 September.
According to Abdullayev, the urgency of water agenda for Central Asia is explained primarily by the fact that only 70-80% of the region's population have access to safe drinking water, while only 40% have adequate sanitation.
"Water and waste: Reduce and reuse" is the theme of the current water forum held annually in the Swedish capital with participation of nearly 130 countries. On the sidelines of the global event, representatives of the major international organizations, political figures, scientists, environmentalists, businessmen and water experts, united by a common understanding that water is the fundamental of future prosperity, exchange ideas on solving the most acute water problems.
Today over 663 million people or every tenth inhabitant of the planet lack for clean water. By 2025, about 1.8 billion people will experience a total water shortage. By 2030, with the current practice of using water reserves, the global population will face 40% water deficit.
The policy of careful water use in Turkmenistan at the domestic level is implemented through the construction of reservoirs; the introduction of water-saving and treatment technologies in industry; and through the wide spreading of such progressive experience as trickle irrigation and sprinkling in agriculture.
With completion of the construction of all hydraulic facilities of the Turkmen lake “Altyn Asyr” Turkmenistan will become the first nation in Central Asia to stop pollution of the common waterway - the Amudarya river.
On the foreign policy arena, Turkmenistan is the initiator of the "water diplomacy" concept. As a chairing country in the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea, Turkmenistan put forward the idea of developing a Central Asian Water Strategy, which in the future would lay the foundation for universal instrument - the UN Global Water Strategy.
