BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb. 24
By Ilkin Seyfaddini – Trend:
The largest consumer of Uzbekistan's water resources today (90-91 percent) is agriculture, Trend reports via Uzbek media.
In 2019, the agricultural sector's contribution to Uzbekistan's GDP was about 28 percent.
The second largest sector in terms of water consumption is public utilities (4.5 percent). There are 119 cities, 1,064 urban-type settlements and 1,108 rural settlements in the country. Of these, 69 cities (58 percent), 335 urban-type settlements (31 percent) and 2,902 rural settlements (26 percent) are supplied with drinking water from proven groundwater reserves. The remaining settlements are supplied from other water sources (surface water, unconfirmed reserves, wells, water pipes, etc.).
Industry (accounting for 30 percent of GDP in 2019) accounts for 1.4 percent of water consumption, fisheries for 1.2 percent, heating for 0.5 percent, and the rest of the economy for about one percent.
At the same time, industries and energy sectors have been actively developing in recent years and their consumption of water is constantly growing.
Fish farming is also developing intensively. In total over 3,600 fish farms work in the country, and the total area of water bodies occupied for cultivation of fish products exceeds 595,000 hectares. The volume of water consumption of pond farms in the country in 2018 made up 608 million cubic meters.
In Uzbekistan fresh river water is traditionally used for fish farming. However, in recent years, due to water shortages, fish farms located in river valleys have to use waste water. In 2018, about 116,000 tons of fish were grown in Uzbekistan.
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