‍Central Asia and The Caucasus Journal

Abstract A healthy environment is one of the fundamental pillars of sustainable development, but rapid population growth, industrialization, and excessive exploitation of natural resources, especially water resources, have jeopardized the fragile ecological balance in many regions of the world. As an arid and semi-arid region, Central Asia faced serious environmental problems during its economic reconstruction after the collapse of the Soviet Union, including the drying up of the Aral Sea, increasing industrial pollution, and political tensions resulting from the uncoordinated management of shared water resources. This research aims to examine the environmental situation and sustainable development challenges in Central Asian countries since independence. It attempts to analyze the trend of environmental crises and reveal the necessity of regional cooperation and joint resource management. The central question of the research is how the environmental situation of Central Asia can be explained, given the scarcity of water and the shared exploitation of water resources. The research hypothesis is that the uncoordinated use of natural resources, especially the water resources of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya basins, has been one of the main factors in the emergence of environmental crises and a fundamental obstacle to achieving sustainable development. The research method is descriptive-analytical and is structured within the framework of Thomas Springs' four-stage methodology. The findings show that water resource scarcity, industrial pollution, soil erosion, and climate change threaten the environmental sustainability of region, and only through international cooperation and joint institution-building can the path to sustainable development in Central Asia be strengthened.

Abstract One way to integrating neighboring countries is through environmental cooperation. The Caspian Sea Environmental Convention signed on 5 November 2003 in Tehran to cooperatively protect and restore the environment of the Sea, pollution control, coastal management and sustainable extraction of sturgeon stocks has entered into force in August 2007 after signing all member states. But the mere convention is inadequate to protect the Caspian environment, and there needs to some institutional arrangements, monitoring systems and operational protocols to be enforced among the members, and as such mechanisms and anticipated protocols have not yet became operational, the Convention for the protection of the Caspian Sea Environment has not yet effectively put into force. This article deals with the institutional and operational deficiencies of the Caspian environment Convention. .