Preface

This handbook is geared towards young water professionals in Central Asia. As they now graduate, they inherit an extraordinarily complex system of man made irrigation and hydropower infrastructure that is gradually aging. At the same time, they enter a sector that has enabled the region to prosper and flourish over hundreds if not thousands of years. Finally, they face work where opportunities for modernization abound after decades of inadequate investments. It is the hope of the author that this text provides a source of inspiration for this target group and that the text and the methods presented will also be used by teachers and integrated in university curricula locally.

Finally, this book is dedicated to our past, current and future colleagues at the Central Asian Hydrometeorological Agencies whose tireless work in collecting and analyzing hydro-meteorological data in Central Asia has helped to greatly improve our understanding of the complex runoff generation processes at work in the region.

The author is grateful for the immense help provided by Dr. Beatrice Marti from hydrosolutions GmbH in compiling some of the materials presented here. The support by the Global Water Programme at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and especially to Stephanié Piers de Raveschroot and Dr. André Wehrli is acknowledged. Finally, the author owes a lot to Andrey Yakovlev who provided invaluable guidance throughout his professional career.

Tobias Siegfried and Beatrice Marti, hydrosolutions GmbH

Zurich, April 2021