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Energy Profiling of a High-Altitude Kyrgyz Community: Challenges and Motivations to Preserve Floodplain Ecosystems Based on Household Survey

  • The floodplain areas along the Naryn River in Kyrgyzstan are essential as they hold the riparian (local) ecosystems because they provide firewood, pastureland, and areas for recreation and protection against erosion. Due to limited access to adequate, reliable, and sustainable energy services, the rural population usually derived their energy needs from multiple natural energy resources (i.e., firewood, charcoal, agricultural residues, animal dung, and wood branches). This is considered a common and predominant practice in rural Kyrgyzstan. This situation leads to a negative impact on local ecosystem services. In addition to that, the reliance on solid fuels contributes to indoor and outdoor air pollution, which is partially threatening the local ecosystem services. By contrast, the employment of renewable-based energy supply systems would substantially reduce the burden on the environment, which is mainly untapped. To integrate renewable energies, it is important to understand the energy behavior of floodplain communities. In thatThe floodplain areas along the Naryn River in Kyrgyzstan are essential as they hold the riparian (local) ecosystems because they provide firewood, pastureland, and areas for recreation and protection against erosion. Due to limited access to adequate, reliable, and sustainable energy services, the rural population usually derived their energy needs from multiple natural energy resources (i.e., firewood, charcoal, agricultural residues, animal dung, and wood branches). This is considered a common and predominant practice in rural Kyrgyzstan. This situation leads to a negative impact on local ecosystem services. In addition to that, the reliance on solid fuels contributes to indoor and outdoor air pollution, which is partially threatening the local ecosystem services. By contrast, the employment of renewable-based energy supply systems would substantially reduce the burden on the environment, which is mainly untapped. To integrate renewable energies, it is important to understand the energy behavior of floodplain communities. In that response, the presented article is the first attempt to capture the energy identity of the floodplain community of Kyrgyzstan based on a quantitative energy-based (on-site) household survey. Furthermore, the present research article synthesizes the driving factors that have a (direct or indirect) impact on the energy and local ecosystem services. In addition, the present article proposes a brief pathway for the sustainable energy transition. The article records the recommendation to integrate renewable energies to preserve the local ecosystems of Kyrgyzstan.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author:Kedar MehtaORCiD, Mathias EhrenwirthORCiD, Siegmund Missall, Nadira Degembaeva, Kuban Akmatov, Wilfried Zörner
Language:English
Document Type:Article
Year of first Publication:2021
published in (English):Sustainability
Publisher:MDPI
Place of publication:Basel
ISSN:2071-1050
Volume:13
Issue:23
Pages:23
Article Number:13086
Review:peer-review
Open Access:ja
Version:published
Tag:Central Asia; Kyrgyzstan; ecosystem services; energy pattern; energy profiling; floodplain community; high-altitude; household survey; renewable energies; sustainability
URN:urn:nbn:de:bvb:573-10895
Related Identifier:https://doi.org/10.3390/su132313086
Faculties / Institutes / Organizations:Fakultät Maschinenbau
Institut für neue Energie-Systeme (InES)
Licence (German):License Logo Creative Commons BY 4.0
Note:
This article belongs to the Special Issue "Floodplain Ecology and Sustainable Restoration with Regard to Ecosystem Services"
Release Date:2021/12/20