Environmental Crises in Central Asia

This multidisciplinary book highlights the major environmental challenges in the Caucasus and in Central Asia. These include the impact of climate change on glacial melt, desertification, deforestation, destruction of habitat and biodiversity, overfishing, radioactive and hazardous wastes, water quality and supply, energy exploration, air pollution, pesticide pollution and environmental diseases. All of these have implications that cross national borders and may affect economic, political and cultural relationships on a vast geographic scale. yet, the region’s eight governments—most of them burdened by limited economic resources, weak civil society institutions and political authoritarianism rooted in their lengthy Soviet legacies—have shown little resolve to address these complex challenges.