Climate change, water resources and sustainable development in the arid and semi-arid lands of Central Asia in the past 30 years

The countries of Central Asia are collectively known as the five "-stans": Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. In recent times, the Central Asian region has been affected by the shrinkage of the Aral Sea, widespread desertification, soil salinization, biodiversity loss, frequent sand storms, and many other ecological disasters. This paper is a review article based upon the collection, identification and collation of previous studies of environmental changes and regional developments in Central Asia in the past 30 years. Most recent studies have reached a consensus that the temperature rise in Central Asia is occurring faster than the global average. This warming trend will not only result in a higher evaporation in the basin oases, but also to a significant retreat of glaciers in the mountainous areas. Water is the key to sustainable development in the arid and semi-arid regions in Central Asia. The uneven distribution, over consumption, and pollution of water resources in Central Asia have caused severe water supply problems, which have been affecting regional harmony and development for the past 30 years. The widespread and significant land use changes in the 1990 s could be used to improve our understanding of natural variability and human interaction in the region. There has been a positive trend of trans-border cooperation among the Central Asian countries in recent years. International attention has grown and research projects have been initiated to provide water and ecosystem protection in Central Asia. However, the agreements that have been reached might not be able to deliver practical action in time to prevent severe ecological disasters. Water management should be based on hydrographic borders and ministries should be able to make timely decisions without political intervention. Fully integrated management of water resources, land use and industrial development is essential in Central Asia. The ecological crisis should provide sufficient motivation to reach a consensus on unified water management throughout the region.

Model based decision support system for land use changes and socio-economic assessments

Hydrological models are often linked with other models in cognate sciences to understand the interactions among climate, earth, water, ecosystem, and human society. This paper presents the development and implementation of a decision support system（DSS） that links the outputs of hydrological models with real-time decision making on social-economic assessments and land use management. Discharge and glacier geometry changes were simulated with hydrological model, water availability in semiarid environments. Irrigation and ecological water were simulated by a new commercial software MIKE HYDRO. Groundwater was simulated by MODFLOW. All the outputs of theses hydrological models were taken as inputs into the DSS in three types of links： regression equations, stationary data inputs, or dynamic data inputs as the models running parallel in the simulation periods. The DSS integrates the hydrological data, geographic data, social and economic statistical data, and establishes the relationships with equations, conditional statements and fuzzy logics. The programming is realized in C＋＋. The DSS has four remarkable features：（1） editable land use maps to assist decision-making;（2） conjunctive use of surface and groundwater resources;（3） interactions among water, earth, ecosystem, and humans; and（4） links with hydrological models. The overall goal of the DSS is to combine the outputs of scientific models, knowledge of experts, and perspectives of stakeholders, into a computer-based system, which allows sustainability impact assessment within regional planning; and to understand ecosystem services and integrate them into land and water management.

中亚气候变化:中德合作研究成果

Central Asia(CA)occupies the hinterland of the Eurasian continent,containing the countries of Uzbekistan,Kyrgyzstan,Turkmenistan,Tajikistan,and Kazakhstan[1,2].Being isolated by the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan,the Tibetan Plateau and the Tian Shan Mountains on the border between China and Kyrgyzstan.

Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity from Field Measurements Compared to Pedotransfer Functions in a Heterogeneous Arable Landscape

A high degree of uncertainty with regard to soil parameterisation limits the significance of physically-based simulation of distributed flood control measures, which affect the runoff generation process, such as land-use changes or differing soil tillage practices. In this study, the soil measurement data from the hillslope scale at the Scheyern research farm were compared to demonstrate this uncertainty. To account for the spatial variability of soils in the investigation area of Scheyern, different approaches were applied to estimate soil hydraulic properties and saturated hydraulic conductivity, and were compared to field measurements