President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has signed the decree on the adoption of a strategy for the management of water resources and the development of the irrigation sector in Uzbekistan for 2021-2023.
The strategy includes a number of infrastructural, institutional and capacity-building measures covering sustainable water management and improvement of the irrigation sector in the country.
In particular, it is planned to increase the proportion of concrete-coated canals from 35 percent to 38 percent in the system of irrigation canals, and to increase the efficiency of the irrigation system and irrigation networks from 0.63 to 0.66.
Irrigated land with a low level of water supply is expected to decrease from 526,000 hectares to 424,000 hectares.
The strategy also includes the introduction of water-saving irrigation technologies in 308,000 hectares to 1.1 million hectares of land, including drip irrigation technologies (121,000 to 822,000 hectares); reducing the area of saline land from 1,926,000 to 1,888,000 hectares, including medium and highly saline land (581,000 to 532,000 hectares).
The number of agriculture facilities keeping water accounting based on digital technology “Smart Water” will be increased to 18,576 units, which also includes transferring 60 large water bodies to automated digital management.
