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Two major rivers — the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya — originally flowed into the Aral Sea, once an inland lake that was the world’s fourth largest in water area. In the 1960s, the Soviet Union started largescale irrigation projects in the vast dry steppes extending through the mid and downstream basins of these two rivers. Irrigated land grew from about 4.5 million hectares in 1960 to about 7 million in 1980. The huge increase in water diverted to irrigated areas dramatically decreased water flowing into the Aral Sea, disturbing the balance between water inflow and evaporation from the lake and rapidly raising the saline concentration from 10 per cent to 35 per cent.

The combination of these processes has triggered many problems, including the disappearance of fisheries from the Aral Sea, the contamination of basins by agricultural chemicals, damage to the health of local inhabitants including a lower life expectancy, and the deterioration of the environment. After the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 and the independence of republics around the basins, bitter conflicts arose over water use from the two natural rivers between countries upstream and downstream. To clarify these problems, I stated hydro-meteorological observation and modeling from 2006. I am integrating various kinds of data in order to provide useful information for local communities.

To discuss the sustainability of large scale tree plantation in the peat swamp forest, hydrological and CO2 flux observation are being planned in Indonesia.