Kazakhstanis often hear about the water scarcity in the country. Experts blow the whistle and recommend using water thriftily. However, there is enough water in everyday life, in the home use of city residents, so the people do not feel any scarcity.
Drinking water resources in Kazakhstan
What is a water scarcity?
“Water scarcity is an excess of water demand over available supply. Scarcity is signalled by unsatisfied demand, tensions between users, competition for water, over-extraction of groundwater and insufficient flows to the natural environment,” this is the definition given on the website of FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Currently, 40 per cent of population around the globe suffer from drinking water scarcity, and since the 20th century, the fresh water scarcity has been seen as a global issue. Moreover, the fresh water shortage has been caused by the dynamic population growth on Earth.
According to the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the annual volume of generating river resources in the country is about 102 cubic kilometres. This data does not include the stock of underground water.
“Every year the country consumes nearly 25 cubic kilometres of water to meet its economic needs, including 65 per cent (14.2 cubic kilometres) used in agriculture, 25 per cent (5.9 cubic kilometres) used for industrial needs, and 4.3 per cent (1.3 cubic kilometres) used for public living needs,” said First Vice Minister of water resources when delivering the new draft of the Water Code to the members of Mazhilis. According to the agency, Kazakhstan has no drinking water scarcity.
Zhaniya Khaibullina, researcher of water resources, shares this opinion. However, she confirmed that Kazakhstan would face water scarcity in the future.
“Speaking of the physical availability of water resources, today’s level of water supply is 100 cubic metres per person. Despite the availability of water, the question of quality and safety of water for the population is of concern. If it continues, our situation could become even worse than that in Africa,” the expert said. According to her, currently residents of 1,543 villages of Kazakhstan have no access to quality drinking water.
Sergei Ponomaryov, member of parliament, ecoactivist, also draws public attention to the problem of village residents with access to drinking water. “There are no problems with drinking water in Kazakhstan now. But it refers to prosperous cities only. We have very serious problems in rural areas,” Ponomaryov said.
Huge amounts have been allocated to supply drinking water to the population, yet the issue remains unsolved. Thus, 951.5 billon Kazakh tenge (nearly 2 billion dollars) were allocated from 2011 to 2020, and 111.5 billion Kazakh tenge (251 million dollars) were allocated under the ‘Nurly Zher’ programme (state programme, one of whose tasks is to supply quality drinking water to the population).
Kazakhstan is anti-leader in water consumption rating
Among other factors, the country’s population is quite wasteful in terms of sustainable water consumption. This is evidenced by the global water use rating, where Kazakhstan is ranked 11th among 179 countries.
“The volume of water consumed daily in our country is 3.5 thousand litres per capita. It is 1.3 thousand litres per capita on the average in Russia, 1.2 thousand litres in Georgia, and as low as 348 litres of water in Great Britain,” said Zhaniya Khaibullina.
Therefore, introduction of technologies focused on thrifty consumption of water is of vast importance. This situation has been discussed at the state level. Given that the water issue is quite challenging, the government of Kazakhstan has established a special agency – Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation.
The new agency takes various measures to control water scarcity. For example, its revises the Water Code passed in 2003.
Moreover, President Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev in his message to the people in 2023 noted, “First, we need to speed up introduction of advanced water-saving technologies […] We need to solve the issue of melt water collection and loss from transmission because it is our internal reserve. So, we need to build 20 new reservoirs and renovate at least 15 existing ones, modernise and digitalise at least 3,500 kilometres of canals. The task is to provide about two cubic kilometres of water by 2027.”
According to the World Bank’s estimates, the existing indicators of available water resources in Kazakhstan in the amount of 100 cubic kilometres will drop to 70 cubic kilometres by 2050. Currently, the county fails to take proper measures to improve the quality of available water, introduce new technologies and to consume sustainably. And the country will start to feel the consequences in some 15 years.
New technologies must be introduced as soon as possible to save water as by 2040 the country may face significant shortfalls amounting to 50 percent of its needs, according to forecasts of UNDP experts. “Since almost all sectors of the economy depend on water, due to its deficiency in the regions GDP water availability may decrease by 6 percent by 2050,” according to analysts.
Illustrative photo: Dragana_Gordic on Freepic