In collaboration with institutional partners in Central Asia, Michigan State University established the Central Asia Platform (CAP) based on deep and ongoing engagements with the Asia Hub Network headquartered in Nanjing, China. The purpose of the CAP is to extend and innovate research partnership with a focus on the water-energy-food nexus (WEF) with long-term collaborators in the Central Asian region. Partners include al-Farabi Kazakh National University, AgriTech Hub, Kazakh Agrarian University (KazNAU) in Almaty, Astana Hub—a high tech hub of Kazakhstan—in Nur-Sultan, and Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization Engineering (TIIME). The CAP aims to leverage human, financial, intellectual resources, and together to develop and apply the latest technologies and approaches to address emerging and pressing issues in the region, with an initial focus on water resources management, land degradation, and food security in Central Asia.
The regional partners bring diverse and complementary strengths to the Central Asia Platform. While al-Farabi and KazNAU provide strong academic research experience and technology innovations, the AgriTech Hub is well-versed in the application of the latest science and technologies in contemporary agriculture. The Astana Hub on its part provides an incubator facility to promote and support entrepreneurship. TIIME brings expertise in water resources management, irrigation technologies, land degradation assessment, cross border water sharing analysis, and agricultural research networks to the partnership. CAP's primary activities are capacity building workshops on geospatial technologies and modeling, pilot demonstration projects on agricultural water uses and rangeland assessments, and scholar and professional exchanges. The Platform seeks to synergize efforts to address pressing issues in the region that otherwise cannot be effectively addressed by any partner alone.
*Indicates partners contributing funding for CAP or CAP initiatives.
Norman A. Graham is professor of International Relations at Michigan State University's James Madison College of Public and International Affairs. He also serves as the director of the Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the University. Prof. Graham's long term research interests include international security and economic relations, environmental challenges and sustainable development, Central and Southeastern Europe, and Central and South Asia. His teaching at MSU focuses on international economic relations and sustainable development, with an emphasis on Europe and Eurasia. His current research focuses on the WEF (water-energy-food) nexus in Eurasia, Russian foreign policy, the future of Eurasian security, and the political economy of transition and environmental policy in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Dr. Jiaguo Qi (pronounced Chee) is Director of the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations and Professor at Michigan State University's Department of Geography. Dr. Qi has a broad interest in global change with a focus on complex interactions among land, water, climate, and society using process-based models, geospatial technologies, and in-situ and remote observations. His research includes remote sensing and geospatial technologies; environmental monitoring, assessment, and modeling; land use and land cover change dynamics; and decision support systems for agriculture and rangeland. His recent research efforts center on the WEF Nexus framework, focusing on interactions among land, humans, the environment, and climate change for sustainable development in developing countries in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and East Africa.
Graham, N.A.; S.G. Pueppke; and T. Uderbayev. (2017). The current status and future of Central Asia's fish and fisheries: Confronting a wicked problem. MDPI, 9, x [PDF file]. doi: FOR PEER REVIEW.
Pueppke, S.G.; S.T. Nurtazin; N.A. Graham; and J. Qi. (2018). Central Asia's Ili River ecosystem as a wicked problem: Unraveling complex interrelationships at the interface of water, energy, and food. Water 10: 541; doi: 10.3390/w10050541.
Qi, J.; S. Tao; S.G. Pueppke; T.E. Espolov; M. Beksultanov; X. Chen; and X. Cai. (2019). Changes in land use/land cover and net primary productivity in the transboundary Ili-Balkhash basin of Central Asia, 1995-2015. Envirnon. Res. Common. 2, [PDF file]. doi: 011006.
Partnerships through the Central Asia Platform (CAP) have led to the establishment of the Kazakhstan Knowledge Center on Integrated Water Resource Management (the Center) in 2017, funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as a knowledge and technical assistance (TA) support center to the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The Center aims to introduce efficient and sustainable integrated water resources management systems and technologies in Kazakhstan and to help to create a single window (a situation center) for an informed-decision making process for the government using the most advanced technologies related to water applications. Michigan State University (USA) and the Delhi Institute for Water Education based in the Netherlands plan to jointly implement two pilot projects.
In 2018, through partnerships with AgriTech Hub in Kazakhstan and USDA-ARS (United States Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Services), MSU implemented the Kazakhstan Economics Program (KEEP) with funding from the Asian Development Bank (ABD) and Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) of Kazakhstan. The project supports regional assessment of rangeland carrying capacity and livestock potentials. KEEP is a pilot demonstration of latest technologies in remote sensing, rangeland assessment and modeling, and animal health assessment to provide critical information to the government of Kazakhstan (MOA) for sustainable livestock development.
Another project involves the assessment of water use efficiency in Turkistan, in the southern region of Kazakhstan, with the goals of understanding resource efficiencies and managing the water, energy, and food systems in the region effectively. The region is increasingly going through some water shortages due to climate change, as well as water resources flowing in from nearby mountains due to decreased glaciers and increased water withdraw in the upper stream of the rivers. The project is a consultancy funded by the World Bank through the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Teams within the CAP are also in discussion with USAID and other agencies to seek funding to scale up ongoing research activities and build capacity in other parts of the region, including Uzbekistan.
In addition to collaborative research projects, the CAP facilitates student and faculty exchanges between MSU and local institutions as well as trainings and workshops. Additional regional meetings and joint proposal developments are planned for the near future as well.
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