I decided to become an irrigation and water management engineer, having in my memory the fresh image of my home district, Takhta Kopir, which has been tremendously affected by Aral Sea Disaster. Once the world's fourth largest saline water body, the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960's, reaching only 7% -10% of its original size by 2010. This caused a huge increase in the water salinity level, which killed almost the entire sea flora and fauna. During this period, I myself experienced what water scarcity meant for people and farmers. My grandfather was a farmer who had about 150 hectares of land. In my childhood every vegetation season we used to live in a farmhouse spending most days in the fields where everyone was involved in cropping and irrigation. Because of the profound damage on the agriculture caused by a long drought between 1999 and 2001, all the family was forced to leave our beloved land and farm. This bitter experience motivated me to get actively involved in water resource management in order to find solutions for the water scarcity and to help the farmers affected by the consequences of drought. I learnt a lot about water and its management from my parents who are both hydro melioration engineers. .
I decided to study Water Resources and Land Reclamation in the Tashkent Irrigation and Melioration Institute (TIIM). The strong theoretical knowledge I gained from my hydraulic and ecology classes at TIIM opened a good foundation for the summer field project course "Effective Methods of Biodiversity Restoration in the Delta of Amu-Darya River"" in 2003. The study was focused on preservation of wetland systems through construction of control weirs in Amu Darya River Delta which would promote biodiversity and improve socio-economic conditions of the local population. This increases employment in the Musquash fur and fish industry. I explained how the classic dispute between economic and natural resources interests could be more equally addressed.