http://www.mdpi.com/journal/water/special_issues/water_central_asia/ Dear Colleagues, The water management in post soviet Central Asia is becoming more a social and political process rather than a straightforward techno-technological issue. Nowadays, there is not any more a “proletariat and rural working class” in Central Asia, rather a much more diverse group of agricultural producers with different interests and resources. The message to the policy makers, rural developers and international donors is that if the emerging trends in water management are ignored, the reform or rehabilitation plans will most likely fail to improve the irrigation water management. The technical artefacts, such as rehabilitation of the irrigation system, improving pumps, and decreasing losses, alone do not address the growing social differentiation and competition for water. In this context, the best option would be to couple such technological solutions with very thoroughly designed socio-institutional measures. Iskandar Abdullaev, Ph. D. Guest Editor Submission All manuscripts should be submitted to water@mdpi.com with a copy to the Guest Editor. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website. Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI. Open Access publication is free of charge for manuscripts submitted in 2009 and 2010, and published in the first few issues of Water. English correction fees and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF will be billed in certain cases (250 CHF per paper for those papers that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections). http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/2/3/668/ Since irrigation water is assumedly the predominant factor determining crop yield, the difference in irrigation water availability across the administrative sub-districts of the Khorezm region, Central Asia, also inflicts an unequal distribution of agricultural revenues. Considering the national aim of a fair distribution and efficient use of resources, here we analyze the relationships between irrigation water access and rural welfare from 2000 to 2007 by descriptive statistics. Analyses revealed not only the general dependency of agricultural revenue on irrigation water availability, but also occurrence of low land productivity during water scarce years and, irrespective of the annual water availability, in some tail end regions each year. Furthermore, apart from irrigation water availability, land productivity was also impacted by soil quality, cropping structure, and type of land ownership. Fair distribution of water and land resources should also take into consideration population density. It is argued that an anticipated equal and efficient water allocation necessitates improved irrigation water conveyance, distribution, and application efficiency via best water management practices. Liberalization of markets, development of a market infrastructure and improvement in yields also contribute to increased land and water productivity. http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/2/3/668/ Sun, 19 Sep 2010 00:00:00 CEST Water 2010-09-19 2 3 Article 668 684 2073-4441 Impact of Water Availability on Land and Water Productivity: A Temporal and Spatial Analysis of the Case Study Region Khorezm, Uzbekistan 2010-09-19 doi: 10.3390/w2030668 Maksud Bekchanov Aziz Karimov John P. A. Lamers http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/2/2/307/ The political transformation of the Central Asian region has induced the implosion of the interconnected physical hydraulic infrastructure and its institutional management system. Land-locked Central Asian countries, with their climatic conditions and transboundary water resources, have been striving to meet their food security, to increase agricultural production, to sustain energy sectors, and to protect the environment. The existing water reservoirs are strategic infrastructures for irrigation and hydropower generation. Upstream countries (Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan) favor the reservoirs’ operation for energy supply, while downstream countries (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan) push for irrigation use. This paper provides an overview of the current challenges and perspectives (technical, institutional, and legal regulations) and presents recommendations for the sustainable management of man-made water reservoirs in Uzbekistan. http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/2/2/307/ Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:00:00 CEST Water 2010-06-23 2 2 Article 307 320 2073-4441 Facts and Perspectives of Water Reservoirs in Central Asia: A Special Focus on Uzbekistan 2010-06-23 doi: 10.3390/w2020307 Rakhmatullaev Huneau Le Coustumer Motelica-Heino Bakiev http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/2/2/200/ The increased frequency of water shortages parallel to growing demands for agricultural commodities in the lower reaches of the Amu Darya River, Central Asia, calls for improving the system-level water use efficiency, by using interventions at the field level. Despite the existence of various best practices of effective water use (defined here as “water-wise options”), they are not widely adopted by farmers owing to high initial costs of investment and lack of the necessary knowledge and skills of a new generation of farmers after the Soviet era. For assessing the potential of several water-wise techniques, key indicators such as water use reduction rate (WURR), economic efficiency (EE), and financial viability (FV) were combined with expert surveys. A SWOT procedure was used to analyze the (dis)advantages, opportunities and constraints of adopting the selected water-wise methods. Results show that the examined options have substantial potential for increasing water use efficiency under promising EE. The various recommendations aim at improving the sustainability of irrigation water use. http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/2/2/200/ Thu, 20 May 2010 00:00:00 CEST Water 2010-05-20 2 2 Article 200 216 2073-4441 Pros and Cons of Adopting Water-Wise Approaches in the Lower Reaches of the Amu Darya: A Socio-Economic View 2010-05-20 doi: 10.3390/w2020200 Bekchanov Lamers Martius