Changing water availability in mountain regions has a strong impact on water-dependent economic sectors such as energy and agriculture. The Syr Darya river basin figured as a non-European case study within the EU-FP7 ACQWA project (www.acqwa.ch), which aimed at identifying how climate change might impact rivalries among these sectors in mountain environments and adjacent lowlands (Beniston et al., 2011).
So far, most studies on water related challenges in Central Asia have focused either on climato-hydrological or on socio-political aspects. In this paper, we bring these two perspectives together for the case of the Syr Darya river basin in order to identify issues which are likely to be exacerbated by both climatic-hydrological and socio-political developments.
The goal of this paper is thus to present the impact of future climatic trends on the water regime (chapter 2), to assess current challenges of water governance (chapter 3), and to discuss adaptation challenges and options for water governance and management in the Syr Darya river basin (chapter 4).