EcoCAR - Ecosystem Assessment and Capacity Building for Sustainable Management of Floodplains along the Central Asian Rivers Tarim (Xinjiang/China) and Naryn (Kyrgyzstan)

In the Central Asian drylands the inland rivers and their floodplains have a great ecological importance. The riparian vegetation is not only a hotspot of biodiversity, but also provides a number of ecosystem functions and services like the avoidance of erosion, the reduction of the effects of sand and dust storms or the provision of pastoral land. 

Despite this importance the Central Asian floodplains are heavily endangered or already destroyed by anthropogenic influences (e.g. overexploitation of water resources, intensive agriculture and overgrazing by pastoral use) as well as climate change. Nevertheless, there is no systematic monitoring of riparian ecosystems and its functions (ESF) or services (ESS). Although these problems recently occur in many Central Asian countries, there are no functioning networks of scientists and decision makers to exchange experiences and to develop strategies for conservation and sustainable management of floodplain ecosystems. 

Here the project started and developed methods for the terrestrial and remotely sensed monitoring of riparian ecosystems and its most important stress indicators in two selected investigation areas at the Tarim (Xinjiang) and the Naryn (Kyrgyzstan). Based on this the potential of providing certain ecosystem services was predicted and suggestions for sustainable land use given. 

A special focus was on the integration and networking with and among local scientists, decision makers and students to build up the necessary capacities to use the methods developed within this project. This helped them to cope with the environmental problems in their countries on the way to more sustainability in riparian ecosystems. 

The results of the project can be used for regional development under involvement of local stakeholders in Northwest of China as well as in the other Central Asian countries. In the HNEE part we focused on the one hand on the development of management suggestions but also on the education and training of young scientists on the master and PhD level.