Water is the most important resource in Central Asia. The economy is dependent on agricultural production and hydropower. The demand for water has increased significantly in recent decades due to irrigation development and population growth. The water of the two largest transboundary rivers is used for generating hydropower in the upstream countries, while the downstream countries use huge amounts of the partially polluted water for irrigating agricultural areas. The region's water shortage, marked by the 2010 cessation of the Syr Darya's flow to the Aral Sea, has triggered significant political and economic disputes.

Evaluating and estimating the water balance system and validating climate change in this area are essential for developing strategies for sustainable water resource management. Determining meteorological and hydrological data at significant places is the foundation for further water usage policies.

The installation of a modern infrastructure for acquisition and processing of hydro-meteorological data is part of the CAWA – project (Central Asian Water) and the Green Central Asia project. Remotely Operated Multi-Parameter Stations (ROMPS) are installed by GFZ in the Central Asian countries especially in remote areas. Different meteorological, hydrological (snow and discharge parameters) and GNSS data is continuously measured. The data is stored at the station and transmitted regularly to a central Sensor Data Storage System (SDSS) to provide the data to a wide user community.

The network is part of the Global Change Observatory Central Asia(GCOCA) consists of currently 18 stations. Beside the hydrometeorological sensors and the GNSS receiver, some stations are equipped with broadband seismometers (3), cameras (3), snow pack analyzing systems (4) and discharge monitoring systems (2). 

Project partners:

• Central Asian Institute for Applied Geosciences (CAIAG)

Project duration:

• CAWa: 2008 – 2019
• CAWa-GREEN: 2020-2024
• GreenCentralAsia: 2024-2028

Budget:

• CAWa & CAWaGREEN: Auswärtiges Amt

• GreenCentralAsia: GIZ GmbH

Project-related publications:

• Zech, C., Schöne, T., Illigner, J., Stolarczuk, N., Queißer, T., Köppl, M., Thoss, H., Zubovich, A., Sharshebaev, A., Zakhidov, K., Toshpulatov, K., Tillayev, Y., Olimov, S., Paiman, Z., Unger-Shayesteh, K., Gafurov, A., & Moldobekov, B. (2021). Hydrometeorological data from a Remotely Operated Multi-Parameter Station network in Central Asia. Earth System Science Data, 13(3), 1289-1306. doi:10.5194/essd-13-1289-2021
• (Data publication) Zech, C., Schöne, T., Illigner, J., Stolarczuk, N., Queißer, T., Köppl, M., Thoss, H., Zubovich, A., Sharshebaev, A., Zakhidov, K., Toshpulatov, K., Tillayev, Y., Olimov, S., Paiman, Z., Unger-Shayesteh, K., Gafurov, A., Moldobekov, B. (2020): Hydrometeorological data from ROMPS network in Central Asia. doi.org/10.5880/GFZ.1.2.2020.002
• Schöne, T., Zubovich, A., Zech, C., Illigner, J., Sharshedaev, A., Mandychev, D., Shakirov, A., Stolarczuk, N., Haghshenas Haghighi, M., Gerlitz, L., Gafurov, A., Moldobekov, B., & Lauterjung, J. (2019). In Situ and Remote Water Monitoring in Central Asia — The Central Asian Water (CAWa) Network. In L. Müller, & F. Eulenstein (Eds.), Current Trends in Landscape Research (pp. 599-610). Cham: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-30069-2_27.
• Hoelzle, M., Azisov, E., Barandun, M., Huss, M., Farinotti, D., Gafurov, A., Hagg, W., Kenzhebaev, R., Kronenberg, M., Machguth, H., Merkushkin, A., Moldobekov, B., Petrov, M., Saks, T., Salzmann, N., Schöne, T., Tarasov, Y., Usubaliev, R., Vorogushyn, S., Yakovlev, A., & Zemp, M. (2017). Re-establishing glacier monitoring in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, Central Asia. Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems, 6, 397-418. doi:10.5194/gi-6-397-2017.
• Schöne, T., Zech, C., Unger-Shayesteh, K., Rudenko, V., Thoss, H., Wetzel, H.-U., Gafurov, A., Illigner, J., Zubovich, A., & CeGIT Centre for GeoInformation Technology, Geoengineering Centres, GFZ Publication Database, Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum (2013). A new permanent multi-parameter monitoring network in Central Asian high mountains - from measurements to data bases. Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems, 2(1), 97-111. doi:10.5194/gi-2-97-2013