After the successful first field mission to Central Asia of the Hydro4U consortium members in September 2021, the second mission took place from 31.3 – 12.04.2022 to Shakimardan Enclave (Uzbekistan). The mission was jointly organised by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). It was led by the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU) and SJE Ecohydraulic Engineering (SJE) with the participation of further Hydro4U partners (“Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization Engineers” National Research University – TIIAME, the Own Equity of the Research Institute for Nature and Forest – EV-INBO). The aim of the field mission was to explore the demonstration site “Shakimardan” and surrounding stretches of the river system. During this trip, the identified demonstration site was visited and the external partner for the demonstration was met. This trip included the following visits:

• 01-02 April 2022: mission to Uzbekistan, visit of stakeholders in Fargona, in particular UzbekGidroEnergo, the local partner for the demonstration activity, and the Governor Office of the district,

• 03-12 April 2022: mission to Uzbekistan, visit of Shakhimardan (Uzbek Enclave in the territory of Kyrgyz Republic)

The main purpose of this fieldtrip was to collect data for the ecological assessment at the selected demonstration site for small hydropower deployment.

Hydro4U partners tasks during the trip – who did what?

SJE field team 1 coordinated the survey with drones, total stations, flow measurements together with the contracted local survey experts. SJE field team 2 documented the whole future diversion stretch with barriers and mesohabitats and together with BOKU, TIIAME and INBO identified stretches for the planned 1D telemetry study on fish in the river system.

The BOKU team characterised the affected river stretch of Koksu River, including Aksu River and downstream parts of Shakimardan basin in terms of fish biodiversity, population status, migratory aspects and habitats. They performed a training on data collection with the goal to characterise local fish population and conducted electrofishing together with TIIAME to get information on potential indicator species for SJE’s studies.

INBO did some first tests with 1D telemetry equipment and searched for suitable spots for further studies on migration behaviour of indicator species using 1D acoustic telemetry.

The pictures show:

• Source of Koksu river
• Electro fishing with local partner TIIAME
• Reactivating old Russion flow meter
• Discharge measurement with different flow meters
• Local flow velocity meaurements for fish preference identification

picture credits: SJE

The International Water Management Institute is organizing a training within the framework of IWMI’s International Science and technology Center (ISTC)’s on ‘Assessment of Water resources using Earth Observation (EO) project and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Global Partnership for Sustainable Cooperation on Shared Waters projects.

IWMI jointly with other projects is organizing a workshop on the topic: “Enhancing water resources management in the shared Karatag Basin: Building shared data sets and strengthening institutional coordination”.

You can meet Oyture Anarbekov (IWMI) and Bakhtiyor Karimov (TIIAME), they will both be speakers.

Date: November 29 -December 02, 2021

Venue: Atlas Hotel, 32, Nisor Muhammad Street 3/4, Dushanbe, Tajikistan

Registration is now closed 

Steinbeis Europa Zentrum (Steinbeis) stands for over 30 years of experience in innovation consulting and research funding throughout Europe and beyond. In cooperation with TUM, Steinbeis was strongly involved in the Hydro4U proposal writing and now, we are very glad that the project consortium got the chance to demonstrate small-scale hydropower (SHP) solutions in Central Asia.

In the project, our role is to coordinate the Dissemination and Communication (D&C) activities as well as the Exploitation measures.

Our D&C activities include on the one hand, to raise awareness on the project’s aims and objectives and on the other hand, to enable the communication and networking with our stakeholders in the EU and Central Asia. Hydro4U is connected with SHP stakeholders and similar projects and initiatives via its social media channels like Twitter (@Hydro4Uproject) and LinkedIn and by personal contacts of our partners. You can also follow our progress on the Hydro4U website www.hydro4u.eu. The website gives you insights into the latest project activities and news, the technical solutions and demonstration sites in Central Asia and will also make available articles and publications. Furthermore, we will distribute a newsletter 2-3 times a year, so please subscribe here to be automatically informed. To support know-how transfer and education on solutions in the hydropower technologies, partner universities in Europe and Central Asia jointly develop educational material and organise webinars and site visits.

In the Exploitation activities, we will clarify exploitable project results pre-defined during the proposal writing and manage intelligent property (IP) rights with a focus on the most promising commercial results. For the market uptake, we will conduct a market analysis and define business models and cases. A roadmap for exploitable results will enable partners to benefit from their joint work in the project.

Authors: Charlotte Schlicke (D&C), Matthieu Grosjean (Exploitation)

Partner description: Steinbeis Europa Zentrum 

Partner Website: https://www.steinbeis-europa.de/en/home 

Project Website: www.hydro4U.eu
Newsletter subscription: /newsletter/
Twitter profile: @Hydro4Uproject
LinkedIn profile: LinkedIn
YouTube: Hydro4U YouTube

Promoting and upscaling the implementation of the sustainable small-scale hydropower (SHP) technologies in Central Asia through the large-scale Hydro4U project activities are in full action. To reach the project’s first major stage, a project team consisting of part of the Hydro4U consortium undertook a trip to Central Asia visiting Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan from 22nd of September to 3rd of October 2021. The project team’s focus lay on the identification and assessment of several potential demonstration and planning sites where our innovative small hydropower planning tools and equipment could be implemented within the upcoming project tasks. 

In Kyrgyzstan, the project team met with potential investors and stakeholders, such as the Ministry of Energy, to discuss the planned activities and expected outputs within the Hydro4U project. Synergies were created by active participation in KSTU´s Summer School with lectures on “Sustainable Hydropower” by Dr. Markus Reisenbüchler, Technische Universität München, “Advancing Water-Energy-Food Nexus concept: Examples from Central Asia” by Oyture Anarbekov (IWMI-CA), International Water Management Institute (IWMI), and on “Central Asian hydrology” by Tobias Siegfried, hydrosolutions.ch.

In Uzbekistan, the Hydro4U project team visited further small hydropower sites organised by Uzbekgidroenergo and met with the European Delegation´s programme manager to discuss the proceedings and potential synergies with further EU activities in the region. The discussions presented valuable insights into the multifaceted regional peculiarities from a political, economic, environmental, technical and social point of view. The southern part of Kazakhstan marked the final destination of the Hydro4U project team’s visit to Central Asia. Here, the team faced highly complex man-made hydrological-hydraulic arrangements with vast potential for optimisation applying the Water-Energy-Food-Climate Nexus approach. 

The thorough analysis and evaluation of the identified sites is one of the most important initial steps of the project as it is the main prerequisite for the successful project implementation. The team returned very satisfied with several feasible options for the implementation of the upcoming tasks, that now need to be evaluated and prioritised.

The regional partners and stakeholders gave the team a very warm welcome and were enthusiastic and open for future collaboration based on innovative and sustainable approaches for the benefit of all.

Author: Oyture Anarbekov, International Water Management Institute IWMI

photo credits: Bertalan Alapfy, Technische Universität München

Hydro4U has become member of PLANET, the cluster for programmes on environment, water, sanitation, climate change, disaster risk reduction, nuclear remediation, biodiversity, energy efficiency and renewable energy. 

We are happy to contribute with our activities for a green transition in Central Asia and looking forward for joint activities.

Link: https://circabc.europa.eu/ui/welcome

Hydro4U aims at bringing together stakeholders from industry, politics and science, both from Central Asia and the European Union in order to contribute to a sustainable and climate-resilient future for the region by demonstrating European small hydropower equipment and technologies.

One task within Hydro4U is the development of academic programmes and courses on sustainable hydropower for students from Europe and Central Asia. Hydro4U project partner Kyrgyz State Technical University named after Iskhak Razzakov (KSTU) is hosting annually a two-week Summer School for students titled “Kyrgyzstan – Hydropower, Ecology and Hydromorphology”. This programme was already designed in 2019 by KSTU and Technical University of Munich (TUM). The SummerSchool is financially supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

From 14 to 26th September 2021, students from Germany and Kyrgyz Republic experienced the incredible potential of hydropower in Kyrgyzstan but also learned about ecological impacts and sustainability related to ecology and hydro-morphology. The main organisational work of the Summer School was done by Venera Baichekirova, Head of the International Department at KSTU. On the technical side, she was supported by Prof. Trukmen Jabudaev and Prof. Nuridin Niazov, both from KSTU, and Dr. Markus Reisenbüchler from TUM. The concept of the Summer School consists of lectures and workshops at KSTU in Bishkek combined with field trips to interesting sites in the Kyrgyz Republic related to hydropower and natural river systems. The programme is completed by cultural offers such as Russian language courses and sightseeing trips.

Hydro4U contributed actively to the Summer School programme to reach students and academic experts. After an overall introduction by Prof. Jabudaev (KSTU) on renewable energies in the Kyrgyz Republic, Dr. Markus Reisenbüchler (TUM) introduced the Hydro4U project as well as concepts for sustainable small-scale hydropower and ecological river management in an interactive workshop. Further lectures from Hydro4U were given by Dr. Tobias Siegfried (Hydrosolutions Ltd) on “Climate and Climate Change in Central Asia” and Oyture Anarbekov (IWMI-CA) on “Advancing Water-Energy-Food-Climate Nexus concept: Examples from Central Asia”. Both talks explained to the students the environmental and agricultural background of Central Asia and drew a picture on future challenges in this interesting region. A highlight was the guided tour by Prof. Niazov through the Toktogul and Kurp Sai hydropower stations. Further technical sites visited were the Chakan GES SHPs (guided by Mr. Ulan Aituganov), the Kambar-Ata-2 HP (guided by Mr. Marat Nabatov) and the Orto-Tokoy irrigation reservoir (guided by Mr. Nurbek Sadygaliew).

This Summer School is an ideal way to gather students but also experts from Europe and Central Asia to discuss and learn in an exciting environment. The Hydro4U consortium is happy that they could contribute to this event.

Authors: Markus Reisenbüchler, TUM and Oyture Anarbekov, International Water Management Institute IWMI

photo credits: Markus Reisenbüchler, Technische Universität München

Hydro4U is now on YouTube. A first video from our public kick-off event (30^th June 2021) is already online. 

Prof Peter Rutschmann, Technical University of Munich (TUM), presented the project overview of the Hydro4U project to representatives from Central Asia and EU.

Hydro4U on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbjuyqi-5xFUd-MK9p5Foyw

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hydro4u/about/

Hydro4U is a project funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Under the coordination of Technical University of Munich, 13 partners from 8 countries are collaborating to boost sustainable small-scale hydropower in Central Asia. Eco-friendly hydropower solutions will be implemented in two demonstration plants in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The project was officially launched on 29th June 2021.

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