“Actual Water Issues of Kazakhstan”

AUTHOR: ABYLAY ISKAKOV

Abstract

In the last few years, lack of water has become one of the main environmental problems of the world. Scenes and photos from the driest regions of our planet are terrifying. According to our studies, more than half of people are dealing with a lack of water or its impurity.

Today, each inhabitant of the Earth consumes about 750m3 of freshwater per year. However, with an increasing population, its amount will be decreased to 450m3. Up to 80% of the world’s countries will be in zones, which, relying on UN classification, relate to categories below the water scarcity. Only in Africa, about 150 million people will get into this situation. Lack of water in desert and semi-desert areas will cause an intensive migration of millions of people.

So, we are representatives and students from Kazakhstan who are extremely concerned about this environmental problem. We want to make our world a little bit better, starting with our homeland!

Methods

During this project, our team conducted a huge amount of work. Considering our topic, we studied a lot of scientific reports from the National Academy of Kazakhstan’s Geography to gain accuracy and completeness of the information. Analyzing such resources, we obtained numerous precise statistics and data about the ecology of Kazakhstan. For example, it gave us information about hydroelectric power stations (HPS or HPP) on Kazakhstan’s and China’s parts of Irtysh.

Besides, to understand the current situation and see the real condition of Kazakhstan's water resources we had to have their pictures. Analyzing all the extracted methods, we came up with the most suitable one: satellite images of the rivers. It made us comprehend that in almost all sections of the rivers, the composition changes and accordingly, the external and quality too. Talking from the practical point of view, we projected the most useful engineering way to solve the issue. We took the technical performance into account, and calculated the value of the productivity.