Since the collapse of the Soviet Union there have been an ongoing competition between the energy generation and irrigation sectors of the upstream and downstream countries in Central Asia. Hence, the downriver countries, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, mainly consume water for agricultural purposes, while the upstream countries, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, use water as a source of hydro energy. In the past, there have been an agreement between the downstream and the upstream countries to exchange water for agricultural needs in summer and for fossil fuels in winter.
Saule Akhmetkaliyeva was a research fellow in the Eurasian Research Institute at H.A.Yassawi Kazakh Turkish International University. She holds a BS in petroleum engineering from the Kazakh National Technical University named after K.I. Satbayev and a MS in Environmental Science from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi with a GPA of 4.0. Saule has conducted research on new methods of matrix acidizing of carbonate formations in Karachaganak field, Kazakhstan for her bachelor’s degree, and a research on advanced sedimentary analysis of sediments from Marmara Gölü, Turkey for her master’s thesis.