Water scarcity and agricultural productivity in Uzbekistan: Open-data evidence from regional wheat production and irrigated area, 2010-2024

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 University of Business and Science (UBS), Tashkent city, Chilanzor district, Yakkabog' MFY Gavhar Street, House 1, Uzbekistan

2 Department of Finance and Tourism, Termez University of Economics and Service, Termez, Uzbekistan & Research Center CEDR Under the Tashkent State University of Economics, Tashkent, Uzbekistan & International Islamic Academy of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

3 National Institute of Pedagogy and Character Education named after Kori Niyozi, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Tashkent City

4 Termez State University, Termez, Uzbekistan

5 Tashkent state University of Economics, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

6 Fergana State University,150100, Ferghana City, Uzbekistan

7 Bukhara State Pedagogical Institute, Bukhara, Uzbekistan

10.22124/cjes.2026.10052

Abstract

Irrigated agriculture remains central to food security in Uzbekistan, but regional evidence on the productivity implications of water scarcity is often limited by public-data constraints. The analysis builds a reproducible open-data panel for thirteen agricultural regions of Uzbekistan over 2010-2024 and examines how wheat productivity relates to irrigation-resource pressure. Wheat yield is calculated from official SIAT statistics on wheat production and wheat sown area. Irrigation-resource pressure is represented by irrigated sown area and by the ratio of wheat area to total irrigated sown area. National irrigation-water withdrawal data provide the system-level context for 2013-2024. The empirical strategy uses two-way fixed-effects panel models with region and year effects; inference is checked with region-clustered, HC3 and panel-HAC standard errors. Irrigation withdrawals for agriculture declined from 48.9 km3 in 2013 to 39.9 km3 in 2024, while national wheat yield rose from 4.72 to 5.32 tons ha-1. Regional productivity differences remained wide: average wheat yield ranged from 2.65 t tons ha-1 in Karakalpakstan to 6.60 tons ha-1 in Andijan. The fixed-effects estimates do not provide stable evidence that broad irrigated-area indicators alone explain regional wheat yield after accounting for region-specific characteristics and national year shocks. The pressure proxy is negative, but inference is sensitive to the covariance estimator. The results do not diminish the importance of water scarcity; rather, they show that aggregate region-year open statistics cannot identify field-level irrigation adequacy, canal reliability, salinity exposure or farm-management responses. The article provides a transparent baseline and specifies the higher-resolution data needed for credible economic valuation of water scarcity.

Keywords

References

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Caspian Journal of Environmental Sciences
Volume 24, Issue 4
October 2026
Pages 1199-1208

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