Abstract
Central Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions on the planet earth to global climate change, depending on very fragile natural resources. The Soviet legacy has left the five countries (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) with a highly integrated system but they are facing great challenges with tensions that hinder regional coordination of food and water resources. With increasing climate variability and warming trend in the region, food and water security issues become even more crucial now and, if not addressed properly, could affect the regional stability. The long-term drivers of these two most critical elements, food and water, are climate change; the immediate and probably more drastic factors affecting the food and water security are land uses driven by institutional change and economic incentives. As a feedback, changes in land use and land cover have directly implications on water uses, food production, and lifestyles of the rural community in the region. Regional and international efforts have been made to holistically understand the cause, extent, rate and societal implications of land use changes in the region. Much of these have been understood, or under investigation by various projects, but solutions or research effort to develop solutions, to these urgent regional issues are lacking. This article, serves as an introduction to the special issue, provides a brief overview of the challenges facing the Central Asian countries and various international efforts in place that resulted in the publications of this special issue.
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Jiaguo Qi received his M.S. in soil and water science from University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA in 1989; and his Ph.D. in soil and water science from University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA in 1993. He is the Director of the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations and Professor in the Department of Geography at Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA. Previously he worked as a Physical Scientist at USDA-ARS Southwest Watershed Research Center, Tucson, Arizona before he joined Michigan State University in 1998. His research focuses on two areas: integrating biophysical and social processes and methods in understanding land use and land cover change; transforming data into information and knowledge. He strives to use case studies in different parts of the world to understand the nature of the coupled nature-human systems and develop adaptive, local solutions to global change problems. The geographic extent of his research is global; with projects in North America, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, East and West Africa, South America, and Australia.
Temirbek S. Bobushev received his Candidate of Science in denudation of land in mountains from Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia in 1980; and his Ph.D. in productive forces and economic development of Kyrgye Republic from Kyrgyz State Mining University, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in 2005. He is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Natural Science at the American University of Central Asia. His specialty is a regional environmental and economic security and development. His research in those areas (nine monographs and over one hundred and ten articles and manuals) devoted the issues of regional economic and environmental development. In recent years, he combined research and publications on economic development and environmental security of Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia.
Rashid Kulmatov received his M.S. in environmental chemistry from Tashkent State Institute of Pharmaceutics, Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 1970; his Ph.D. in environmental chemistry from Institute of Nuclear Physics, Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences, Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 1978; and his Doctor of Science (Dr.), in environmental science from Russian University of Chemical Technology, Moscow, Russia in 1988. He is a professor at the Department of Applied Ecology, National University of Uzbekistan. Previously, he worked as the UNDP Project Manager, Vice President for Science, Termez State University, Uzbekistan, before joining the National University of Uzbekistan in 2005. Current research interests: the modern problems of usage, monitoring, management and assessment of the influence of climate change on the quantity and quality of rivers water of the Aral Sea basin; the modern problems of monitoring and protection of atmospheric air of cities.
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Qi, J., Bobushev, T.S., Kulmatov, R. et al. Addressing global change challenges for Central Asian socio-ecosystems. Front. Earth Sci. 6, 115–121 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-012-0320-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-012-0320-4