Qosh Tepa's draw on the Amu Darya is still an estimate, and the estimates differ by a factor of two

The most recent published assessment of the Amu Darya, a Times of Central Asia analysis of 25 September 2026, projects the river's flow at 65 per cent of its historical norm and warns that unregulated Afghan withdrawals "could reduce downstream flows by 15-25%". Nothing in the four weeks to 2 October added a measurement of the canal's intake, a water-sharing agreement or a fresh official Afghan completion figure. What follows is an assessment of what is and is not known, not a report of news.

The published estimates differ by a factor of two

The canal's share of the Amu Darya is quoted at almost any value between a tenth and a third. Najib Aga Fahim, a former Afghan water minister, put it at no more than 12 per cent of total flow, in an Asia-Plus survey of 10 August 2026, which also says Afghanistan plans to divert 6-10 cubic kilometres a year, with a possible maximum of 12, against basin runoff of about 75 cubic kilometres. The Times of Central Asia reported in July that roughly 20 per cent of the river would go into the canal on completion, having put the figure at 25 to 30 per cent in June. A study of ninety years of discharge data, reported by the same outlet, estimates 16-20 per cent of what is left after the river leaves Tajikistan.

Official statements sit at the low end. Uzbekistan's water minister, Shavkat Khamrayev, has said since 2023 that the canal is meant to irrigate about 300,000 hectares and would need 4-5 cubic kilometres a year. The canal's project manager, Said Zabihullah Miri, says it "will not have a significant impact on the level of the Amu Darya". Afghanistan's deputy minister of water resources and energy, Mujibu-r-Rahman Omar, said in March 2026 that "our goal is to receive only what we are entitled to".

The spread is not noise. Design capacity, planned withdrawal and realised diversion in a dry year are three different quantities, and no source reviewed here reports a measured intake at the headworks in Kaldar district, Balkh.

The last official construction figure is a year old

Afghanistan's National Development Corporation said on 29 October 2025 that the canal's dam was about 85 per cent complete and that phase two excavation and filling had reached about 95 per cent. No more recent official percentage appears to have been published: the corporation's news page records a ministerial site visit on 27 April 2026 without one. The Times of Central Asia reported in July 2026 that more than 200 of the planned 285 kilometres had been excavated, with completion scheduled for 2028. The 81 and 93 per cent figures still in circulation, and the claim that phase two would finish "within five months", date from September 2025 and are not current.

The river was already depleted before the canal

The canal arrives on a river whose decline is overwhelmingly man-made. A ninety-year reconstruction of Amu Darya discharge, reported by Asia-Plus on 30 June 2026, finds flow down 54-77 per cent in the middle and lower reaches against a 1931-1950 baseline, with a 77 per cent fall at Kyzyljar and 22 per cent near Kerki. It attributes 114-120 per cent of the reduction in those reaches to human activity: precipitation rose 6-13 per cent and climate alone would have increased flow by 14-20 per cent, but withdrawals more than cancelled the gain. Agriculture accounts for 92 per cent of basin abstraction.

That complicates attribution: a dry year, Soviet-era irrigation losses and a new Afghan withdrawal all show up at the same gauges, and only the first two have a long record.

What is measured, and what is not

The interstate machinery is working, and it does not include Afghanistan. The Interstate Commission for Water Coordination met three times in 2026: on 20 February in Dushanbe, where it judged that agreed reservoir regimes and withdrawal limits had "helped prevent critical disruptions of water supply" over the 2025-26 non-growing season; on 10 April in Bukhara, where it approved growing-season limits; and on 7 August in Turkistan, Kazakhstan. Asia-Plus reports the growing-season Amu Darya total at 39.772 billion cubic metres, with 16.02 billion for Uzbekistan, 15.5 billion for Turkmenistan, 7.052 billion for Tajikistan and 2.1 billion for the Aral Sea and delta. Afghanistan features in none of the three agendas.

Nor does the Amu Darya feature in the commission's own metering upgrade: the work plan discussed in August covers automation of water accounting in the Syr Darya basin. The broader instrument is the World Bank's $20 million Central Asia Water Efficiency Cooperation grant to the Executive Committee of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea, approved on 21 July 2026, which does cover water accounting in both basins and preparation of up to six transboundary projects by 2031.

One related claim should be set aside. The reported halving of Kazakhstan's Syr Darya allocation does not survive checking: the 909 million cubic metres described as the old figure is Kazakhstan's limit for the 2026 growing season, so the comparison was between seasons rather than years, and on a different river.

The nearest thing to a channel with Kabul is technical. At the first Afghanistan-Central Asia think-tank forum, in Kabul on 16 June 2026, the director of the commission's scientific centre, Dinara Ziganshina, proposed joint climate and water assessments in the Amu Darya basin and regular technical dialogue on hydrological data, and said the canal "requires professional support in the areas of basin planning, water-use assessment, salinity management, riverbank protection, and the integration of climate risk considerations".

Compare Rogun upstream. The World Bank states that the plant "will not consume any water from the Amu Darya", that Tajikistan has committed to stay within its annual ICWC allocation, and that Rogun and Nurek together will not shift more than the 4.2 billion cubic metres a year Nurek has historically shifted. Those commitments are contestable, but written down and attached to numbers. Qosh Tepa's are not.

What to watch

• Any published measurement at the Kaldar intake, or an Afghan figure more recent than October 2025, which would replace design assumptions with data.
• The 95th ICWC meeting, to be held in Turkmenistan, and the non-growing-season limits it sets for 2026-27 on a river already running well below norm.
• Whether the CAWEC grant extends metering to the Amu Darya, rather than the Syr Darya where the commission's own automation plan sits.
• Whether the technical track proposed in Kabul in June produces a joint basin assessment with Afghan participation, or stays at expert-seminar level.

Sources

• SIC ICWC — 92nd Meeting of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia
• SIC ICWC — The 93rd Meeting of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia
• SIC ICWC — 94th Meeting of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia
• SIC ICWC — Water and Climate as a Foundation for Sustainable Regional Connectivity: SIC ICWC Participates in the Afghanistan-Central Asia Think Tank Forum
• The Times of Central Asia — Water Stress: Will the Summer of 2026 Become a Turning Point for Central Asia?
• The Times of Central Asia — Afghanistan Advances Qosh Tepa Canal While Urging Regional Water Cooperation
• The Times of Central Asia — New Study Finds Sharp Decline in Amu Darya Flows
• The Times of Central Asia — Megaprojects Instead of Quotas: How Central Asia's Water Diplomacy Is Changing
• Asia-Plus — Qosh-Tepa Canal: new water source or growing threat to Central Asia?
• Asia-Plus — Human activity, not climate change, is the main cause of declining Amu Darya water levels, study finds
• Asia-Plus — Tajikistan and Central Asian countries review water limits during irrigation season
• Gazeta.uz — "Our goal is to receive only what we are entitled to": Afghanistan's position on transboundary waters
• Gazeta.uz — "Should we take up arms and go to war?" The water minister on the construction of the Qosh Tepa canal in Afghanistan
• National Development Corporation of Afghanistan — Phase Two of Qosh Tepa Canal Nears Completion: High-Level Delegation Visits Northern Provinces
• World Bank — Regional Water Management and Conservation Across Central Asia to Improve with World Bank Support
• World Bank — Rogun Hydropower Plant Project FAQs