6. The various Sessions were chaired by Messrs. K. Ismukhanov, B. Kamilov, N. Akhtar and B. P. Das, respectively.
7. In developing countries over 70% of water used is for irrigation. It is estimated than in the year 2010, approximately 45% of the total global food production will come from irrigated lands. To develop irrigation on such a large scale, many engineering works are needed. At the beginning of the 1990s there were over 36 000 dams in the world, with many of the resulting storages serving irrigation. Some rivers now have a cascade of reservoirs, with little or no free water in between them. Irrigation systems, which consist of dams, reservoirs, main irrigation canals and their distributary net, drainage canals, and often drainage water storages, offer a diversity of water bodies for fish production. On the other hand, such systems exercise a negative impact on fish stocks of the original riverine habitats, which are no longer available to them.
8. The arid belt of Asia extends from the Mediterranean to the Pacific, including the following countries: Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, southern Russia, countries of Central Asia, i.e. Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and also Pakistan, India, Mongolia and China. For the purpose of this report all these countries are defined as Region. Much of the food production comes from irrigated agriculture, and all of them have inland water resources with harvestable fish stocks. While FAO and other organizations have been actively promoting the integration of fish production into irrigated small-scale farming systems in high rainfall areas of Asia and Africa, small-scale systems are less common in countries of the arid zone of Asia, especially north and west of India and Pakistan. In these countries large irrigation systems predominate, with water distributed to these areas for production of food crops and cotton. Such systems include reservoirs, distribution canals, drainage canals, and storages of residual water. While many reservoirs have been used for fish production with varying success, other types of water bodies have been utilized much less or not at all.
9. Improved integration between fisheries and agriculture is an important means to achieve enhanced food security and fish production. The most direct interactions between agriculture and fisheries occur where these two sectors compete for the same kinds of resources, especially land and water, and where measures aimed at higher agricultural production can alter natural fish habitats. Physical and chemical changes to the aquatic environment arising from agricultural practices such as damming, water abstraction and transfer for irrigation, drainage and wetland reclamation are common where irrigated agriculture is a government priority. Fishery and irrigation experts from the ten countries which met in Almaty presented accounts on the status of irrigated agriculture and the use for fish production of water bodies serving irrigation. The presence of irrigation specialists was most welcome as it allowed inter-sectoral exchange of ideas. This also contributed to a better understanding by agriculture engineers of some problems facing fisheries managers when dealing with fish production in irrigation water bodies.
10. Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, situated in northwestern China, is arid, with very low precipitation. Rivers and lakes are fed predominantly by snow and ice meltwaters draining from high mountain ranges. Capture fishery, which rapidly developed after 1945, exhausted the available fish stocks, and the situation worsened when water from rivers started to be diverted for irrigation to increase crop production for the fast growing population. Discharges in the lower courses of rivers declined, and some rivers dried out completely before reaching terminal lakes or before their confluence with other rivers. Terminal lakes also started drying out. Fish introductions and species transfer were the first management measures aimed at increasing fish yields in reservoirs and lakes. More recently, fisheries management has concentrated on aquaculture development, which now produces 84.6% (47 760 tonnes) of the total fish production in the landlocked Xinjiang Region.
11. In India crop production from irrigated agriculture has kept pace with the growth of the population: from 51 million tonnes in 1951 (population 361 million) to 200 million tonnes in 1999 (population 1 billion). This has been primarily attributable to the implementation of irrigation projects, which today comprise 311 major, 944 medium and 40 000 minor schemes. India has the largest irrigated area in the world. Man-made reservoirs harnessing water for irrigation, flood control and hydropower have a combined area of around 40 000 km2, ranging from less than 1 km2 to 740 km2. Fish production from Indian reservoirs has been steadily rising and contributes a significant percentage to the total inland fish production, which in 1997 reached 2.5 million tonnes. However, better management of water in reservoirs is still required to improve the natural fish productivity in those reservoirs with rapid and large changes in water level during the time of fish reproduction and nursing. India has shown promising results with pilot studies of fish production in irrigation canals, and has identified water bodies resulting from seepage and drainage waters as having good potential for pisciculture.
12. In Iran there are 3500 island water bodies. Of these about 730, covering a total area of 508 000 ha, are used for fisheries. During the 1995-1999 the annual fish production from these water bodies averaged 30 000 tonnes, employing over 130 000 fishermen. It has been recognized that to keep the fisheries sustainable, regular stocking is necessary. Irrigated lands cover 8 million hectares, of which about 600 000 ha are allocated to rice farming. It is planned to further develop integrated rice-carp farming and trout farming during the post-harvest period. Farming in rice fields in 1999 resulted in a harvest of 126 tonnes of fish. The side benefits of this type of culture are fertilization of fields by fish and control of the rice stem borer by carp feeding on it.
13. In Kazakhstan about 70% of water is used for irrigated agriculture. Reservoirs in southern and western Kazakhstan serve mainly irrigation, while those situated in the northern half of the country are mostly multipurpose. By the beginning of the 1990s 2.3 million ha of land were irrigated, plus 1 million ha of irrigated pastures in the deltaic region adjacent to the Aral Sea. Apart from the large number of reservoirs, there are 96 400 km of irrigation canals and 14 900 km of drainage canals. The change from a centrally planned to a market oriented economy has had a negative impact on land use, resulting in a reduction of irrigated land by about 1 million ha. The system of irrigation canals has deteriorated in a number of places, and no new irrigation systems have been constructed. There has been a drastic reduction in the officially reported fish catches from reservoirs and other water bodies, in spite of the government maintaining its policy of regular stocking of reservoirs with hatchery-produced fingerlings, as fish hatcheries are still government-owned. It is believed that much of the fish is now fished illegally. But there are also losses of fish resulting from poor coordination of water management, for example in the Syr-Darya River basin, where untimely water releases from upstream reservoirs require the excess water, including fish, to be spilled in depressions without outflow. On the positive side, the reduced use of organochloride pesticides in agriculture has resulted in gradual lowering of their concentrations in water and subsequently in lower mortalities of fish, especially of silver carp.
14. As much of Kyrgyzstan is covered by high mountains, the predominant type of agriculture is livestock production on mountain pastures. Consequently, this Central Asian country has the least developed fishery of all countries in the subregion. The multipurpose Toktogul reservoir produces between 12 and 70 tonnes of fish per year, but recently its stocks have not been fully exploited. It has been suggested that with good management this reservoir could produce 120 to 150 tonnes per year in a sustainable manner. Due to large drawdown other reservoirs appear to be less suitable for development of commercial fisheries, but they could still be used by recreational and subsistence fishermen. There is a major scope for improving fish production on fish farms, some of which are connected to irrigation water supply.
15. At present Mongolia has no fish production in irrigation systems. In the 1990s 90 000 ha of land were irrigated, but there are no major reservoirs and irrigation canals which could be utilized for fish production.
16. In Pakistan, 14 million ha are irrigated. There are three major reservoirs, plus 19 barrages, 12 interlink canals and 43 independent irrigation command areas. The total length of main canals is 58 500 km. Farm production is dominated by crop production, especially wheat and rice, followed by cotton, sugar cane, and maize. About 79% of the total wheat crop comes from irrigated fields. None of the major dams are provided with fish passes, but some barrages have fish passes, which, however, are largely non-functional. Migration of important economic fish species such as Truncalosa ilisha and Tor putitora can no longer take place. Most pumping stations have no fish protection devices and where these are present, they do not function well. In the year 2000, a total of 144 000 tonnes of fish were captured from rivers, reservoirs, natural lakes and irrigation canals; 36 000 tonnes were produced in aquaculture, and about 75% of these were produced in fishponds fed by irrigation canals. There is potential for enhancing fish production in irrigation and multipurpose reservoirs, and also in the at present largely unutilized brackish water bodies formed from drainage water. Abandoned irrigation canals are being brought under fish production and managed as fish ponds. Flood control compartments ranging from 10 to 5 000 ha are naturally stocked with fish during floods, but a few months later they are drained, which does not allow the fish to grow to market size. With proper management, these structures could be better utilized, perhaps for the production of stocking material.
17. Turkey has experienced intensive dam construction activity aimed at tapping as much of its water resources as possible, mainly for hydroelectricity and irrigation. Turkey has 8.5 million ha of economically irrigable lands and 151 dams which have been constructed to store irrigation water. The South Eastern Anatolian Project (GAP) is a multi-purpose project which comprises 22 dams and is expected to double the current hydropower and agriculture production of Turkey. Upon completion, the water storages will cover 2 200 km2 and include 2 235 km of irrigation and drainage canals. In 1998, 1 828 tonnes of fish were captured in GAP water bodies, as well as 520 tonnes produced in aquaculture, this corresponding to 3.3% of the total inland capture, and 1.5% of the total aquaculture production. The major fish produced in water bodies of irrigation systems are common carp and trout, but Turkey intends to initiate breeding, stocking and production of other indigenous fish species. Turkey has a shortage of trained fishery specialists and needs assistance with the introduction of new and cheaper culture technologies suitable for fish production in water bodies of irrigation systems.
18. Uzbekistan uses about 85% of the total water runoff for irrigated agriculture, producing mainly cotton, rice and wheat. Water for irrigation is taken from the middle courses of rivers, and drainage water is returned to the rivers further downstream or collected in depressions in lakes without outflow. The total length of irrigation canals is 150 000 km, and that of drainage canals 100 000 km. Fisheries in numerous bodies of irrigation systems is now privatized, with the former state fishing companies now united under one private management enterprise. Today the major fish production comes from aquaculture from fish ponds established alongside irrigation systems. Twelve of these fish farms use irrigation water, eight use drainage water with salinities of up to 6 ppt. After a sharp decline in fish production in early 1990s, in 2000 the fish production in all types of freshwater bodies of Uzbekistan reached 9 200 tonnes, of which 6 200 tonnes came from aquaculture and the rest from capture fisheries. With better support from the government and more private investment which would assist especially small-scale producers, fish production could be substantially increased. In Uzbekistan’s lakes and reservoirs in the Aral Sea basin fish production varies between 1.5 and 50 kg per ha per year. Prior to the major changes in economy, state-owned hatcheries produced stocking material which was regularly released into reservoirs and lakes. The hatcheries/fish farms still exist and have sufficient capacity to provide enough seed to farmers and for stocking, to achieve total fish production of up to 100 000 tonnes per year. But changes in the economic system have resulted in a two thirds decline in fish catches from reservoirs. Training of fishery specialists stopped, and research was dismantled. Today, Uzbekistan has no specific programmes, national or international, assisting fishery development. The fishery potential of irrigation reservoirs is grossly underutilized. The current fish food consumption in Uzbekistan is only 1 kg/person/year.
