Science-Based IWRM Implementation in a Data-Scarce Central Asian Region: Experiences from a Research and Development Project in the Kharaa River Basin, Mongolia

Mongolia is not only a water-scarce but also a data-scarce country with regard to environmental information. At the same time, regional effects of global climate change, major land use changes, a booming mining sector, and growing cities with insufficient and decaying water and wastewater infrastructures result in an increasingly unsustainable exploitation and contamination of ground and surface water resources putting at risk both aquatic ecosystems and human health. For the mesoscale (≈15,000 km 2 ) model region of

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