AUCA’s EM&SD program got a PEER NAS USAID grant

PARTNERSHIPS FOR ENHANCED ENGAGEMENT IN RESEARCH (PEER) Cycle 5
The project title: Integrated water resources management and strategic environmental assessment of Kabul and Amu Darya rivers
Principal Investigator: Zheenbek Kulenbekov (kulenbekov@gmail.com), American University of Central Asia.
U.S. Partner: Forrest Melton, California State University Monterey Bay, and the NASA Ames Research Center Cooperative for Research in Earth Science and Technology.

The Inception Workshop was held in AUCA from 10^th of March to 11^th of March.

 Key participants said welcoming speeches and others made presentations from whole 19 seminar attendees including EM&SD program students and Bard College students. That is AUCA Leadership, participants came from Afghanistan and Tajikistan, participant from local USIAD Office, Kyrgyz office of CAREC, local IWRM Experts, participants from Kyrgyz Project Implementation Unit. 

Project Overview:
Afghanistan has highlighted the need for improved water resource management as an essential first step towards rebuilding rural communities and improved human health. Food security in Central Asia and Afghanistan also represents a major and worsening problem. The agricultural sector will be an important focus for upgrading human capital skills, given the size of the rural population. The aim of this research project is to lift Afghanistan out of the identified knowledge gap on its water resources and remove existing barriers to sustainable integrated water resource development and management (IWRM) in the Amu Darya Basin, as well as promoting strategic environmental assessment. At the same time, the project is expected to provide transparency on the potential impact of integrated water resource development plans and ongoing projects to downstream riparian states, as well as the donor community. Because of its international position, American University of Central Asia will take the lead in data generation and analysis and will collaborate with research and implementing agencies in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. In many ways, the Kyrgyz Republic is ahead of its neighbors on issues associated with the effective use of water resources, and through successful implementation of this project the country could serve as a positive example for the region. Providing qualified training of local communities and universities on IWRM in the project area is critical in advancing future research. 
Within the Amu Darya Basin, about 30 million people depend on irrigated agriculture for their livelihoods. Past wars and civil conflicts have hindered the upstream riparian state Afghanistan from developing its agricultural sector. The current focus of the international community on facilitating sustainable development and poverty reduction in Afghanistan is likely to increase water utilization within its transboundary basins and therefore might have a negative effect on livelihoods in downstream riparian states. Like many regions across the world, Central Asia and Afghanistan are seeking ways to make the best use of limited water resources. The purpose of this research project is to close the knowledge gap on water resources and potential irrigated areas within three sub-basins of the Amu Darya Basin within Afghanistan, as well as to help determine the legal obligations of Afghanistan to its riparian neighbors. The closure of this gap should help Afghanistan and the donor community to plan their sustainable water development and environmental assessment strategies and projects. The project research team will assemble a data set on water availability, changes in irrigated areas, and the irrigation potential in the three target sub-basins. They will also develop a model of impacts of ongoing rehabilitation projects in Afghanistan on lower provinces within the tributary basins, as well as riparian states within the Amu Darya Basin. They aim to provide an array of cost-effective tools to agricultural producers in the three sub-basins of the Amu Darya River Basin to assist them with optimizing irrigation scheduling and maximizing crop yields with the water available each year. In addition, they will provide new tools for quantifying and forecasting irrigation demand to water managers in order to help schedule water deliveries to growers effectively. The project implementation period is from current year to 2019. The budget of the project is around 300000 for three countries for three years.