Central Asia’s waterways are rapidly changing their patterns: in the Karatag and Zeravshan river basins, approximately 95% of the seasonal snow cover has already melted. This alarming conclusion was reached by specialists from the Tajikistan Hydrometeorology Agency following high-altitude aerial monitoring.

For a region where over 80% of all water resources are generated in the mountains of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, these figures are a call for immediate action. Accelerated snowmelt directly impacts the flow of key rivers—the Amu Darya and Syr Darya—on which the agriculture, energy, and environmental security of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan depend.

The main threats from rapid melting are:

• Accelerated glacier degradation: When seasonal snow melts too early, “permanent” glaciers are exposed. Exposure to direct sunlight causes them to melt at double the rate of their protective snow cover.

• Catastrophic floods and mudflows: Overflowing glacial lakes create the risk of breakthroughs, powerful mudflows and landslides, threatening settlements on both sides of the border.

• Seasonal water shortages: Rapid flooding in early summer is followed by low water levels at the height of the agricultural season, when water is critically needed for irrigation of fields.

As part of the State Program for the Study and Preservation of Glaciers, Tajik scientists conduct dozens of expeditions each year, using helicopter-borne ground-penetrating radar to measure ice thickness. However, the scale of the problem extends far beyond the borders of one country.

Google machine translated