Welcome to our interactive resource, which accumulates the information on best practices in the use of water, land, and energy, as well as environment in Central Asia!  

What is best practice?

For the purposes of this resource, a best practice may be defined as the successful application of approaches, technology, models, techniques, instruments, and other tools or their combinations that have proven to be effective in the use of water, land, and energy resources and in the protection of environment in Central Asia.    

Here the tool means an approach, technology, method or combination of methods and measures, or organization of process for sustainable and rational use of water, land, and energy resources and protection of environment. Glossary contains more detailed information on major tools included into the database.

Selection criteria

Best practices were selected based on their proven effectiveness in addressing current issues, sustainability, social significance and usefulness, scale of implementation and replication potential. The following criteria were also used to include best practices into the database:   

• Recognition of applied tools by national partners in the countries;
• Wide application of tools in given country (not on a one-time basis);
• Relevance to one of the following areas: water, land, and energy use; environment protection.

How to use the map

The interactive map is scaled for 5 Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The map can be easily zoomed in/out by clicking on relevant buttons or by scrolling. The map also supports the “satellite” mode.  

Multi-colored tags on the map represent various spheres of practices: “water resources”, “land resources”, “energy resources”, and “environment”. Each sphere has its own color as indicated in the legend.  

By default, all practices available in the database are displayed on the map with multi-colored tags. Hovering a cursor over a tag opens a window with the title of respective practice. This allows quick and interactive search of desired practices.

By clicking on selected tag, the user may see a window with brief information on given practice and quickly decide whether the selected practice is of interest or not. The popup window also contains the link to detailed information on the selected practice. 

Search in the database can be made by sphere of practice, tool category, country and province. It is also possible to compare practices.  

How to modify information and add new data to the database

• To input information on a best practice, which yet is not available in the Interactive map, please, fill in the FORM in the section “Add data". The practice will be uploaded upon checking of the added data by the Administrator.
• If you have supplements or modifications to the information presented in the Interactive map, please, contact the Administrator.