ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 28. The Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation of Kazakhstan plans to increase the share of groundwater use for irrigation of crop areas, Trend reports.
According to the ministry, today, agriculture sector uses more than 40,000 tons of water per day, or 60 percent of the total water supply collected in the country. Of this, the share of groundwater is 1.2 percent, or 548 tons per day.
Thus, at the first stage, taking into account economic feasibility, it is planned to increase the share of groundwater in agriculture to 10-15 percent.
To note, the annual reserves of groundwater in Kazakhstan that can be used amount to more than 43,000 tons per day. Of this, 19,000 tons per day can be effectively used in agriculture. Most of the groundwater reserves intended for irrigation have been explored in Almaty, Pavlodar, East Kazakhstan and Jambyl regions.
Meanwhile, Kazakhstan will build 20 new and reconstruct 15 existing water reservoirs by 2030. This is provided for by the draft concept for the development of the water resources management system for 2024–2030, which was adopted today at a meeting of the government of Kazakhstan.
Thus, to ensure the country’s water security, it is planned to build 20 new and reconstruct 15 existing reservoirs, as well as modernize more than 14,000 km of irrigation canals and hydraulic facilities.
Unproductive water losses during transportation are planned to be reduced from 50 to 25 percent, and available water resources are to be increased by 2.4 cubic km. In general, the implementation of the planned approaches will make it possible to increase the area of irrigated land to 2.5 million hectares by 2030.
In addition, to encourage farmers to use water-saving technologies, the share of subsidizing costs for the creation of irrigation systems, as well as the purchase of drip and sprinkler irrigation equipment, will be increased from 50 to 80 percent.
It is expected that, thanks to this, the area of irrigated land with water-saving technologies will increase to 1.3 million hectares, about 2.1 cubic km of water will be saved, and agricultural yields will also significantly increase.