Uzbekistan has been among the countries that have made the most significant progress in reducing water stress. According to UN-Water, which tracks the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the ratio of freshwater withdrawal to total renewable resources in the country has decreased from 169% in 2017 to 122% in 2022.

This means that over five years, the level of water stress has fallen by 47 percentage points, and by the end of 2026, it is expected to decrease to 117%.

For comparison: over the same period, Pakistan decreased its indicator by 24.6 percentage points, Turkmenistan by 13.6 percentage points, Armenia by 6.1 percentage points, and Azerbaijan by 1.8 percentage points.

These and other results of water sector reforms, as well as current challenges and future plans, were presented at the first meeting of the Expert Council, organized in Tashkent by the Center for Sustainable Development in the Water Sector. Representatives of relevant research institutes and international organizations gathered at a roundtable to jointly develop a vector for future public policy. A Gazeta correspondent attended the event.

“Some water sector goals for 2030 have already been achieved today.”

The meeting was opened by Timur Butunbayev, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration for Water Supply System Reform. He recalled that systemic changes have taken place in the sector over the past eight to nine years: the Water Code has been adopted , and the concept for water management development through 2030 has been approved .

“If we analyze this concept, every indicator is being met ahead of schedule. That is, certain goals set for 2030 have already been achieved today,” Butunbaev said.

Timur Butunbaev. Photo here and below: Center for Sustainable Development in Water.

He stated that the purpose of the meeting was to develop a vector for future state policy, taking into account the opinions of experts, which would then be presented to the president.

Water diplomacy and training of specialists

Abdulhakim Salokhiddinov, Vice-Rector of the National Research University “Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization Engineers” (TIIAME), spoke about a new direction in personnel training.

According to him, pursuant to the presidential decree of April 2 of this year, Uzbekistan has opened its first master’s degree program in international water diplomacy. Scholarships are available not only to citizens of Uzbekistan but also to residents of neighboring countries, including Afghanistan.

In addition to the master’s program, the university has launched advanced training courses in “Water Diplomacy and Agri-Water Management” for current specialists and decision-makers in the industry.

Modernization of the water management system

According to Sherzod Muminov, Deputy Director of the Scientific Information Center of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination (ICWC), since the water management development concept was approved, water-saving technologies have been implemented on 60% of the country’s irrigated lands, and 40% of irrigation canals have been concreted.

Sherzod Muminov.

Thanks to the modernization of pumping stations, their energy consumption has been reduced by almost 30%. Furthermore, a unified digital database covering over 600,000 water users and over 4 million hectares of irrigated land has been created. These measures are already resulting in annual water savings of over 10 billion cubic meters, and by 2030, this figure is expected to increase to 15 billion.

Regional Challenges: Koshtepa and the Expansion of Irrigated Lands

Muminov also discussed regional challenges. One is the construction of the Koshtepa Canal in Afghanistan, which, he estimates, could create a risk of water shortages in the lower reaches of the Amu Darya during dry years. The second is Tajikistan’s plans to expand irrigated land by another 50,000 hectares by 2040, which also means additional water withdrawals from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya basins.

The ICWC, according to the speaker, remains the mechanism through which countries in the region coordinate water distribution even during difficult, low-water years.

Expedition to Kashkadarya: What reforms are looking like on the ground

Bakhriddin Khasanov, professor and dean of the Faculty of Hydraulic Engineering, presented the expedition report from the National Research University TIIAME. The group of teachers, researchers, and students spent a month in the Kashkadarya region, studying the progress of industry reforms on the ground.

Bakhriddin Khasanov

Regional results for 2026: total water savings of 538 million cubic meters, 215 million of which are due to the implementation of water-saving technologies and 323 million due to the repair and modernization of irrigation networks. Of the region’s total canal length, 470 km are earthen canals without concrete lining. According to the 2026 plan, 108 km of main and inter-farm canals, 180 km of on-farm networks, and 484 km of canals on farms and cluster farms are to be concreted.

Of the 506,000 hectares of irrigated land in the region, according to the 2026 plan, 11,100 hectares were supposed to be converted to drip irrigation, 5,300 hectares to sprinkler irrigation, 3,800 hectares to discrete irrigation, and another 21,800 hectares to other water-saving technologies.

Of the region’s 76 pumping stations, 18 are slated for modernization, which should result in savings of 30 million kWh of electricity. Twenty-six stations are already operating under a public-private partnership; five more are planned to be transferred to the private sector in 2026.

The scientific base remains weak

According to independent expert Dilshod Shodiev, reforms in the water sector are based on too little scientific evidence.

“Over the past five years, approximately 20,000 scientific papers have been defended in Uzbekistan, of which only less than 1%—48 to be exact—are related to the water sector,” said Shodiev. He attributes this to chronic underfunding of scientific research: state budget expenditures on science in the sector, he said, have declined by 30% of overall budget expenditures over the past three years. The share of R&D expenditures in Uzbekistan’s GDP is approximately 0.1% or less—compared to 5.7% in Israel, 3.5-4% in South Korea, and 0.7% in neighboring Kazakhstan.

Dilshod Shodiev.

He also commented on the process for obtaining funding through the Agency for Innovative Development under the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Innovation. By law, it already takes at least nine months and includes 12 stages, some of which, in his opinion, are excessive—for example, the technical review, which takes up to 15 days, although document verification could take a day using AI.

“We can’t accelerate our scientific research in this manner,” Shodiev concluded. He noted that the water sector requires a simplified and faster funding mechanism.

Why are farmers reluctant to invest in water conservation?

The expert also raised the issue of farmers’ land rights. The industry talks a lot about implementing water-saving technologies, Shodiev noted, but this process is driven by the water users themselves—farmers and smallholder farms.

According to his data, the former accounts for approximately 90% of the country’s irrigated land. Based on this, the Water Development Center decided to investigate why the adoption of these technologies in the farming sector is slow.

Under the current Land Code, the state can confiscate land lease rights from farms for 11 reasons, including “inefficient land use,” which is interpreted in practice by the local khokim (mayor). According to Shodiev, over the past three years, land has been confiscated from 33% of the country’s farms.

“Let’s say a farmer earned $10 million on a hundred hectares last year. This year, it’s not $10 million, but $9.9 million. Is that inefficient use or not? The law doesn’t clearly define what constitutes inefficiency, so the khokim (mayoralty official) who allocates the land has the right to decide: if income drops even by a dollar, it’s inefficient use,” explained Dilshod Shodiev.

For comparison, the expert cited data from the Statistics Committee for 2024: on average, a farm brings in 33 million soums per hectare, while a dehkan farm brings in 385 million soums, almost 12 times more.

He explains the difference by the stability of rights: a dehkan farm’s plot is passed down by inheritance and is perceived as private land, whereas a farmer, without guarantees of maintaining a lease, is not interested in investing in expensive water-saving technologies.

“If the mayor can take away the land tomorrow, what’s the point of investing $10,000 or $100,000 in it?” Shodiev noted, citing the lack of legal guarantees as one of the main barriers to water conservation.

Center for Sustainable Development in the Water Sector: First Results

Diyorakhon Toshmatova, Deputy Director of the Center for Sustainable Development in the Water Sector, spoke about the work of the organization, established by presidential decree on October 13, 2025.

Diyorakhon Toshmatova.

The Center’s mandate is to provide analytical support for industry reforms, strategic planning, improvement of the regulatory framework, development of international cooperation, and implementation of innovative solutions.

Currently, according to her, a national concept for the rational use of water resources and environmental protection for 2027–2050 is being developed in collaboration with Swiss and Dutch experts, and a review of legislative acts that require alignment with the new Water Code is underway.

The center publishes a weekly industry newsletter and is preparing for the World Water Efficiency Forum, which will be held in Samarkand this September.

The reform must be understandable to water users

According to Iskandar Abdullaev, an expert at the International Water Management Institute, the focus should be not only on infrastructure and technology, but also on the trust of water users themselves in the reforms—how they evaluate the quality of services, the transparency of their relations with the government, and the operation and maintenance of systems.

Iskandar Abdullaev. Photo:

Uzbekistan, he estimates, has already set ambitious goals—increasing efficiency, expanding water-saving technologies, reducing energy consumption in pumping systems, and developing public-private partnership projects—but these goals only become manageable when they are transformed into a clear operational chain: who is responsible for implementation, how data is reported, how budget decisions are made, and what results are seen by the end water user.

Without a common digital foundation, he warned, each reform block risks remaining isolated: infrastructure cannot develop effectively without feedback from water users, reporting risks remaining descriptive, and funding may not cover the entire life cycle of assets.