Abstract: Central Asia is located in the center of Eurasia, with a large number of transboundary rivers, and the conflicts in using water resources are aggravating under the dual influence of climate change and human activities. The problem of water resources and ecological environment in this region has always been a hot topic in the academic research. The quantitative assessment of the development and utilization potential of water resources in the region is of great significance for understanding the current status of water resources and improving the utilization rate of water resources. Based on the statistics of water resources from 1997 to 2014,we selected eight indicators, including utilization rate of water resource, irrigation ratio of arable land, control rate of surface water, per capita water supply, recycling rate of water resource, live use water quota, water supply module, and ecological water use ratio to establish an evaluation index system for the water resources, then quantitatively analyzed the development potential of water resources for five countries in Central Asia by using fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model. The results show that the development and utilization of water resources in Central Asia is in the intermediate stage, and the evaluated value is comparatively great (0.502 7),which indicates a great exploitation potential of water resources. Among these five countries, Kazakhstan has the highest evaluated value (0.712 4), which indicates the greatest exploitation potential of water resources, but unreasonable use of water should be abandoned. The evaluated values of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are 0.591 1 and 0.488 7 respectively, which indicates a large exploitation potential of water resources, but these two countries should be transformed from breadth development to deep development gradually. The development and utilization of water resources in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are all in the advanced stage, and the evaluated values are 0.352 6 and 0.315 0 respectively, which indicates a least exploitation potential of water resources. In the future, these two countries should develop water-saving economy, and pay attention to the integrated management of water resources. All these conclusions provide scientific basis and decision support for the sustainable utilization of water resources in Central Asia.

Key words: development potential of water resources, fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model, the five Central Asian countries