Editing Irrigation (section)

====Soviet Central Asia====
When the [[Bolsheviks]] conquered [[Soviet Central Asia|Central Asia]] in 1917, the native [[Kazakhs]], [[Uzbeks]], and [[Turkmens]] used minimal irrigation. The Slavic immigrants pushed into the area by the Tsarist government<ref>{{Citation |title=Slavic peasant settlers in Russian Turkestan, 1886-1917 |url=https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5c4e60e0-12a8-442c-ade8-ac43e403afc6/files/m9da4614a83470507950e0f86166d3968 |access-date=6 May 2022 |vauthors=Morrison A}}</ref> brought their irrigation methods, including waterwheels, the use of [[paddy fields|rice paddies]] to restore salted land, and underground irrigation channels. Russians dismissed these techniques as crude and inefficient. Despite this, tsarist officials maintained these systems through the late 19th century without other solutions.<ref name="ReferenceC">[[#refPeterson2016|Peterson 2016]].</ref>

Before conquering the area, the Russian government accepted a 1911 American proposal to send hydraulic experts to Central Asia to investigate the potential for large-scale irrigation. A 1918 decree by [[Lenin]] then encouraged irrigation development in the region, which began in the 1930s. When it did, [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and other Soviet leaders prioritized large-scale, ambitious hydraulic projects, especially along the [[Volga|Volga River]]. The Soviet irrigation push stemmed mainly from their late 19th century fears of the American cotton monopoly and subsequent desire to achieve cotton self-sufficiency.<ref>[[#refMcNeill2000|McNeill 2000]] p. 163</ref> They had built up their textile manufacturing industry in the 19th century, requiring increased cotton and irrigation, as the region did not receive enough rainfall to support cotton farming.<ref name="ReferenceC" />

The Russians built dams on the [[Don (river)|Don]] and [[Kuban (river)|Kuban]] Rivers for irrigation, removing freshwater flow from the [[Sea of Azov]] and making it much saltier. Depletion and salinization scourged other areas of the Russian irrigation project. In the 1950s, Soviet officials began also diverting the [[Syr Darya]] and the [[Amu Darya]], which fed the [[Aral Sea]]. Before diversion, the rivers delivered {{convert|55|km3|cumi|0}} of water to the Aral Sea per year, but after, they only delivered {{convert|6|km3|cumi|1}}. Because of its reduced inflow, the Aral Sea covered less than half of its original seabed, which made the regional climate more extreme and created airborne salinization, lowering nearby crop yields.<ref>[[#refMcNeill2000|McNeill 2000]] pp. 164-5</ref>

By 1975, the USSR used eight times as much water as they had in 1913, mostly for irrigation. Russia's expansion of irrigation began to decrease in the late 1980s, and irrigated hectares in Central Asia capped out at 7 million. [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] killed a proposed plan to reverse the Ob and Yenisei for irrigation in 1986, and the breakup of the USSR in 1991 ended Russian investment in Central Asian cotton irrigation.<ref>[[#refMcNeill2000|McNeill 2000]] p. 166</ref>