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Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation announced on August 26 that the Kapchagay reservoir outside Almaty was completely full for the first time in ten years. Created in 1970 as an artificial lake, 100km long and up to 25km wide in places, the reservoir can hold more than 18 billion cubic meters of water. The reservoir collects water from the Ili River, which originates in China. This spring, the ministry said up to 900 cubic meters of water per second flowed into the reservoir, attributing the increased inflow to the melting of the Tien Shan mountain glaciers and higher than usual rainfall. The reservoir was initially meant to regulate the flow of the Ili River on its way to Kazakhstan’s largest lake, Balkhash. Today, it is used for irrigation, fish farming, and recreation. Located a one-hour drive from Almaty, its beaches are popular with holidaymakers. According to Medet Kerimzhanov, deputy head of the Balkhash-Alakol basin inspectorate, the last time the Kapchagay reservoir was 100% full was in 2014. Today, 750 cubic meters of water per second are released from the reservoir to irrigate fields. Kerimzhanov added that the irrigation season in the region will continue until the end of September. Earlier this month, the Ministry of Water Resources said it was drafting an intergovernmental agreement between Kazakhstan and China on distributing water from transboundary rivers — the Ertis, the Ili, and the Emel. To date, the parties have reached a consensus on several provisions of the future agreement, the ministry said.
The Kazakh Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation announced on August 19 that Kazakhstan and China are drafting an agreement on dividing trans-boundary river waters between the two countries. The main objective of the agreement is to ensure that the water in Kazakhstan’s Lake Balkhash remains at an optimal level. Located 280km northwest of the country’s largest city, Almaty, Lake Balkhash is the fifteenth largest lake in the world. It is fed by several trans-boundary rivers flowing from China, the largest of which is the Ili River, which provides about 80% of the lake's water. [caption id="attachment_21931" align="aligncenter" width="1056"] Image: Wikimapia[/caption] Environmentalists in Kazakhstan have been concerned about Lake Balkhash's shallowing. Balkhash has been gradually drying up in recent years, including due to the decline in water volumes in the Ili River. Upstream China has extensively diverted the river over the past half century to produce hydroelectric power and agricultural crops on irrigated land. According to research, as of 2021 China was blocking 40% of the river’s inflow. Moldir Abdualieva, a spokesperson of the Kazakh Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, said that the ministry has been paying great attention to providing Lake Balkhash with the necessary volume of water. “Since the beginning of this year, more than 12 billion cubic meters of water have been sent to the lake," she said. In May, it was reported that the water level in Balkhash had risen by 23cm since the beginning of the year due to increased rainfall and floods caused by snow melt this past spring.
The United Arab Emirates company “Sustainable Water Solutions” (SWS) is to cooperate with Uzbekistan on the construction of a modern wastewater facility in Tashkent. The project includes building a facility with a daily capacity of 1.0 million cubic meters of water and a 42-kilometer wastewater collector in the territory of the Surum mahalla, an administrative centre in Tashkent's Lower Chirchik district. Regarding the scheme, Ahmed Al-Shamsi, head of the SWS company announced: “Our next initiative will prevent water wastage in Uzbekistan. The capacity of the joint facility will be 1,000,000 cubic meters per day at the first stage and 1.5 million cubic meters later. The estimated project cost is one billion dollars." According to reports, the quality of wastewater service provided to 1.5 million people will increase, and more than 500,000 residents and over a hundred enterprises and organizations will be provided with centralized wastewater service. The construction of a 42-kilometer collector allows efficient collection and transportation of wastewater for further treatment. SCADA, a data management and collection system, and GIS,a geographic information system, will be introduced, ensuring effective monitoring and management of cleaning and transportation processes. As a result of this large-scale project, 10 million kilowatts of electricity will be saved, and the sanitary-epidemiological and ecological situation in the Sergeli, Bektemir, and Yangi Hayot districts of Tashkent city will be improved.
