SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL SCALES OF ANTHROPOGENIC CHANGE IN CENTRAL ASIA: PHYSICAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC INDICATORS, INCLUDING HEALTH AND SAFETY RISKS

A large and growing literature on the ecological and human health consequences of the Russian-Soviet century of industrial and agricultural development of Central Asia, is now joined by a literature on the consequences of anthropogenic climate change in this arid region. The relative magnitude of these effects is still unclear, in part because of complexity of change processes, and in part due to great differences in scale, both spatial and temporal, of both processes and observation. Examples of climate change processes are drawn from physical climatology (teleconnection of ENSO and Central Asia drought), precipitation variability with orogenic uplift (GHCN surface observation archives in Pamirs, Alai and Tian Shen Mtns), snowline and glaciation modelling, including dependency of insolation on topographic aspect (from GHCN surface observation archives), and glacial recession over the last half of the 20^th century: USAID Asia Glacier Melt Project (Armstrong 2010), and comparison of similar aerial survey and ASTER satellite imagery studies: Ak-shirak Range (Tian Shen Mtns), Kyrgyzstan 1943-2001 (Khromova et al 2003), and Yanmarey Glacier, Peru 1962-2008, including LIDAR DEM (Mark et al 2010, Huh et al 2012). Examples of anthropogenic change in Central Asia are drawn from past and recent literature including Russian and Soviet documents (in translation) and UNEP-EU studies (zoinet.org). Human health and socioeconomic impacts are found in mapping extent and impact of drought (1998-2001) on irrigated and rainfed vegetation (GIMMS NDVI, based on AVHRR), mapping of change in vegetation phenology of Kazakhstan with the end of Soviet agriculture (deBeurs and Henebry 2004-2005), and mapping of the structure and extent of irrigated agriculture and its consequences in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, including public health impacts (GRID-Arendal). Prospects for improvement in human condition through reconciliation, remediation, mitigation and adaptation are discussed.