Uzbekistan Environment - 2024

Environment - current issues

shrinkage of the Aral Sea has resulted in growing concentrations of chemical pesticides and natural salts; these substances are then blown from the increasingly exposed lake bed and contribute to desertification and respiratory health problems; water pollution from industrial wastes and the heavy use of fertilizers and pesticides is the cause of many human health disorders; increasing soil salination; soil contamination from buried nuclear processing and agricultural chemicals, including DDT

Environment - international agreements

party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Climate Change-Paris Agreement, Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Ozone Layer Protection, Wetlands

signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements

Climate

mostly mid-latitude desert, long, hot summers, mild winters; semiarid grassland in east

Land use

agricultural land: 62.6% (2018 est.)

arable land: 10.1% (2018 est.)

permanent crops: 0.8% (2018 est.)

permanent pasture: 51.7% (2018 est.)

forest: 7.7% (2018 est.)

other: 29.7% (2018 est.)

Urbanization

urban population: 50.5% of total population (2023)

rate of urbanization: 1.25% annual rate of change (2020-25 est.)

Revenue from forest resources

0% of GDP (2018 est.)

Revenue from coal

0.06% of GDP (2018 est.)

Air pollutants

particulate matter emissions: 40.98 micrograms per cubic meter (2019 est.)

carbon dioxide emissions: 91.81 megatons (2016 est.)

methane emissions: 96.16 megatons (2020 est.)

Waste and recycling

municipal solid waste generated annually: 4 million tons (2016 est.)

Major lakes (area sq km)

fresh water lake(s): Aral Sea (shared with Kazakhstan) - largely dried up

Major rivers (by length in km)

Syr Darya (shared with Kyrgyzstan [s], Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan [m]) - 3,078 km; Amu Darya river mouth (shared with Tajikistan [s], Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan) - 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), Syr Darya (782,617 sq km)

Total water withdrawal

municipal: 2.41 billion cubic meters (2020 est.)

industrial: 2.13 billion cubic meters (2020 est.)

agricultural: 54.36 billion cubic meters (2020 est.)

Total renewable water resources

48.87 billion cubic meters (2020 est.)