ABSTRACT
Abstract At the time the five countries of the Central Asia became independent from the Soviet Union, they found themselves in very complicated conditions in the field of water and environment management. The primary focus of past interventions has been on the development and utilization of the water resources of the Aral Sea Basin. While major drainage and land reclamation programs were also conceived, progress was limited and the environmental consequences of development were not fully anticipated. Since salinity represents the critical threat to the long-term sustainability of the systems created, cost-effective programs to address salinity will be an essential element of the strategy, the basic premise of this presentation being that water and salinity management are inter-dependent and that one cannot be conceived without the other. Keywords: Aral Sea Basin, salt accumulation, salt mobilization, transboundary water resources, water conservation, water management.
