President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev has approved the 2025–2028 Water Resources Management Program aimed at modernizing the country’s irrigation system, Dunyo.uz reports.
“In the context of water scarcity in the region, its rational use is becoming critically important,” the head of state emphasized during the project presentation.
The program calls for the reconstruction of 2,551 km of irrigation networks, the introduction of water-saving technologies on 1.4 million hectares of land (including drip irrigation on 293,000 hectares), and the digitalization of water management. Particular attention is given to energy efficiency: upgrading pumping station equipment will reduce annual electricity consumption from 6.8 to 6.2 billion kWh.
“Implementation of the program will save up to 14 billion cubic meters of water by 2028,” the developers noted.
The project also envisions the creation of a unified digital platform for water resource monitoring, automation of 18,755 hydrological stations, and the transfer of part of the infrastructure to private management. Between 2020 and 2024, 60 trillion soums ($4.5 billion / ≈360 billion rubles) of budget funds and $622 million (≈49.8 billion rubles) in foreign investment were allocated for these purposes.
Uzbekistan, along with Kazakhstan, is one of the main consumers of water resources in Central Asia, with irrigated land exceeding 20 million hectares.
CentralasianLIGHT.org
August 13, 2025