In the WE-ACT project at FutureWater, significant advancements are being made to improve climate-sensitive water allocation across the Syr Darya River Basin. This region faces complex challenges, including transboundary water issues and increasing climate impacts on water resources, which the project consortium addresses through advanced water modeling and decision-support tools. A key focus of the work is enhancing the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model, a foundational component of the Decision Support System (DSS) being developed for the region’s water management.

The project involves gathering, analyzing, and integrating socio-economic and water demand data into the WEAP model. Demand scenarios are being created and analyzed to understand how factors such as population growth, agricultural expansion, changing energy demand, and industrial needs shape future water use. Regionally specific socio-economic scenarios are also being developed to reflect the local context, enabling the modeling of diverse future pathways for the Syr Darya Basin. This work ensures that the model responds not only to environmental factors but also to socio-economic pressures unique to the region.

Data review and integration are systematically conducted, focusing on validating and implementing hydro-meteorological, socio-economic, and climate projection datasets. This rigorous approach ensures the accuracy and reliability of the WEAP model, supporting its role in generating outputs that inform sustainable water allocation strategies. Accurate data analysis is critical for tailoring the model to the basin’s needs and aligning with the project’s goal of addressing climate change impacts on water resources.

These efforts contribute to the WE-ACT project’s broader mission of building adaptive and sustainable water management solutions for Central Asia. The next steps in the project focus on calculating and analyzing water demand and water footprints of different users within the Syr Darya River Basin. This work evaluates the effects of water allocation on unmet water demand, environmental flow violations, and the overall sustainability of water use in the region.

Over the last decades, efficient water resources management has been an important element of EU’s water policies, a topic that is addressed with renewed attention in the revised 2021 EU Adaptation Strategy, which lists the need for a knowledge-based approach towards water-saving technologies and instruments such as efficient water resources allocation. The IPCC special report on oceans and the cryosphere in a changing climate (2019) highlights the combination of water governance and climate risks as potential reasons for tension over scarce water resources within and across borders, notably competing demands between hydropower and irrigation, in transboundary glacier- and snow-fed river basins in Central Asia.

WE-ACT’s innovative approach consists of two complementary innovation actions: the first is the development of a data chain for a reliable water information system, which in turn enables the second, namely design and roll-out of a decision support system for water allocation. The data chain for the reliable water information system consists of real-time in-situ hydrometeorological and glaciological monitoring technology, modelling of the water system (including water supply and demand modelling and water footprint assessments) and glacier mass balance, data warehouse technology and machine learning. The roll-out of the DSS for climate-risk informed water allocation consists of stakeholder and institutional analyses, water valuation methods, the setup of the water information system to allow for a user-friendly interface, development of water allocation use cases, and feedback on water use through national policy dialogues.

The work of FutureWater within the WE-ACT study will focus on estimating the water demand and water footprints of the different users and activities within the Syr Darya river basin. Therefore, the effects of water allocation on water footprints, unmet water demand and environmental flow violations will be evaluated using a set of hydrological models such as SPHY and Water Allocation models (WEAP). This will be done for both the status quo and future scenarios.

For more information you can visit the WE-ACT project website.