A Seminar on the Protection of Critical Water Infrastructure Took Place in Ashgabat

On September 24, 2024, a one-day seminar titled “Management Approache and Know-How Tools for Protecting Critical Water Infrastructure from Natural and Technogenic Threats” was held at the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat.

The event brought together 20 participants representing the following organizations: Ministry of Environment Protection of Turkmenistan, PAE “Tebigy Kuwwat”,  Aarhus Centre of Turkmenistan, the Project Office of the Regional Environmental Center for Central Asia (CAREC) in Turkmenistan, United Nations Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA), Ministry of Construction and Architecture of Turkmenistan, State Fire Safety Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Turkmenistan, Main Directorate of Civil Defense and Rescue Operations of the Ministry of Defense, and the Caspian Institute.

Naza Orazova, Program Assistant at the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat, who facilitated the seminar, and Mrs. Olivera Zurovac Kuzman, Economic and Environmental Affairs Officer at the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat, welcomed the participants and wished them fruitful work:

– I am confident that Turkmenistan’s efforts will lead to continuous success and progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. From the perspective of proper economic and environmental governance, the OSCE recognizes that water resource management and the resilience of critical infrastructure are key components in ensuring and maintaining environmental security. We are all well aware of the importance of climate change globally, and how climate change worsens the availability of water resources in the region, which are already limited. This is why it is crucial to continue improving water management and protecting water infrastructure, as this, in turn, can support efforts to mitigate and address the impacts of climate change. Dear participants, I hope that the presentations and discussions at our seminar will inspire you and help generate new ideas and solutions that can be applied to strengthen water resource management, reduce climate change impacts, and ensure environmental security!

International experts delivered their presentations via video conference. The first speaker, Santino Spahiu, gave a presentation on “Flood Frequency Analysis Using the Hydrologic Engineering Centre’s Statistical Software Package (HEC-SSP)”.

Before and after the lunch break, Ekaterina Melnicheko, an expert from Moldova, shared her experience in assessing critical water infrastructure and the tools offered by the CADRI partnership. She also discussed enhancing the resilience of critical infrastructure in Europe and Central Asia, with a focus on the water sector.

The next speaker, Sajit Parit from India, spoke about disaster risk reduction through hydrological “digital twins”, a concept designed to help enterprises detect physical issues more quickly, predict their outcomes more accurately, and produce higher-quality results.

The seminar concluded with a short but equally interesting presentation by Yonatan Rabinovich on the use of satellite data for creating resilient water infrastructure. The expert presented a diagram showing the annual loss of drinking water in monetary terms due to pipeline accidents at depths of up to 3 meters worldwide. The total annual loss amounts to $39 billion, with the largest losses occurring in Latin America and the Caribbean ($8 billion), and the smallest in the Australia-New Zealand region ($0.1 billion). The Caucasus and Central Asia region ranked next with a loss of $0.8 billion. Detecting drinking water leaks in pipelines, regardless of diameter and pipe material, has become possible due to the presence of water purification chemicals.

After each presentation, participants asked questions to the speakers and received comprehensive answers. At the end of the seminar, participants were invited to fill out a short questionnaire to evaluate the quality of the seminar and provide suggestions for future OSCE events in the field of environmental protection.

Berkeli Atayev.