Water Security Assessments in Central Asia: Research and Policy Implications

In this study, we attempt to identify how the notion of water security has been elaborated in the research literature of the period after independence (1992–2018) for Central Asian countries, and the same period for Afghanistan. We apply an assessment approach to evaluate the role of different dimensions in the structuring of the water security concept in Central Asia. We adopt the framework introduced by the Asian Development Bank (ADB 2013, 2016) for the evaluation of water security in Asia, including Central Asia. This framework is based on five dimensions: household, economic, urban, and environmental water security, as well as resilience to water-related disasters. We further explore if potential features of the research institutes and authors identified along the literature review could affect the selection of particular security dimensions. We conduct a multinomial regression analysis to examine whether the significance of the five security dimensions (dependent variable) could be potentially influenced by the origin of the institutes represented in the literature review, the authors’ origin, and the type of research organization (independent variables). The study findings are compared with the current policy dialogue on water security held through different schemes (such as ministries, regional organizations) between the Central Asian countries.