15 April 2013 | 12:06

Water deficit may triple in Kazakhstan by 2050

Photo by Yaroslav Radlovskiy©

Water deficit may triple in Kazakhstan by 2050, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Kazakhstan Environmental Protection Minister Nurlan Kapparov as saying at the conference called Creation of green economy in Kazakhstan. “Water will be the main problem of Kazakhstan. Water remains the main priority for the Environmental Protection Ministry. We see the figures, see the forecasts. We see water deficit and see that it will be growing in Kazakhstan. If we don’t act, water supplies will be three times lower than the demand by 2050,” Kapparov said. According to him, Kazakhstan is already a country dependent on water resources and the dependency on transborder water will keep growing. “Currently half of all the water resources comes from the neighboring countries and the other half is represented by our own water resources. We have calculations that show that the amount of transborder water will keep decreasing with he neighboring countries increasing their water consumption,” the Minister said. He also added that water deficit “may be avoided through use of own resources for some time thanks to glaciers melting.” However, water deficit would be hard to cover when that process stoped. “This is one of those negative scenarios that we are considering. We will be able to close the gap between the supply and demand if we take all policy measures to save water, if we implement water-saving technologies and train people to use water efficiently,” Kapparov said. By Baubek Konyrov

Water deficit may triple in Kazakhstan by 2050, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Kazakhstan Environmental Protection Minister Nurlan Kapparov as saying at the conference called Creation of green economy in Kazakhstan. “Water will be the main problem of Kazakhstan. Water remains the main priority for the Environmental Protection Ministry. We see the figures, see the forecasts. We see water deficit and see that it will be growing in Kazakhstan. If we don’t act, water supplies will be three times lower than the demand by 2050,” Kapparov said. According to him, Kazakhstan is already a country dependent on water resources and the dependency on transborder water will keep growing. “Currently half of all the water resources comes from the neighboring countries and the other half is represented by our own water resources. We have calculations that show that the amount of transborder water will keep decreasing with he neighboring countries increasing their water consumption,” the Minister said. He also added that water deficit “may be avoided through use of own resources for some time thanks to glaciers melting.” However, water deficit would be hard to cover when that process stoped. “This is one of those negative scenarios that we are considering. We will be able to close the gap between the supply and demand if we take all policy measures to save water, if we implement water-saving technologies and train people to use water efficiently,” Kapparov said. By Baubek Konyrov

water news Kazakhstan Kazakh environment deficit