Turkmenistan Environment - 2024

Environment - current issues

contamination of soil and groundwater with agricultural chemicals, pesticides; salination, water logging of soil due to poor irrigation methods; Caspian Sea pollution; diversion of a large share of the flow of the Amu Darya into irrigation contributes to that river's inability to replenish the Aral Sea; soil erosion; desertification

Environment - international agreements

party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Climate Change-Paris Agreement, Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban, Desertification, Hazardous Wastes, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands

signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements

Climate

subtropical desert

Land use

agricultural land: 72% (2018 est.)

arable land: 4.1% (2018 est.)

permanent crops: 0.1% (2018 est.)

permanent pasture: 67.8% (2018 est.)

forest: 8.8% (2018 est.)

other: 19.2% (2018 est.)

Urbanization

urban population: 54% of total population (2023)

rate of urbanization: 2.23% annual rate of change (2020-25 est.)

Revenue from forest resources

0% of GDP (2018 est.)

Revenue from coal

0% of GDP (2018 est.)

Air pollutants

particulate matter emissions: 26.41 micrograms per cubic meter (2019 est.)

carbon dioxide emissions: 70.63 megatons (2016 est.)

methane emissions: 52.09 megatons (2020 est.)

Waste and recycling

municipal solid waste generated annually: 500,000 tons (2013 est.)

Major lakes (area sq km)

salt water lake(s): Caspian Sea (shared with Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Kazakhstan) - 374,000 sq km

Major rivers (by length in km)

Amu Darya (shared with Tajikistan [s], Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan [m]) - 2,620 km
note – [s] after country name indicates river source; [m] after country name indicates river mouth

Major watersheds (area sq km)

Internal (endorheic basin) drainage: (Aral Sea basin) Amu Darya (534,739 sq km)

Total water withdrawal

municipal: 450 million cubic meters (2020 est.)

industrial: 810 million cubic meters (2020 est.)

agricultural: 16.12 billion cubic meters (2020 est.)

Total renewable water resources

24.77 billion cubic meters (2020 est.)