ASTANA – Kazakh Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, the French Development Agency (AFD) and the French Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (BRGM) signed a trilateral agreement to develop cooperation in preserving Kazakhstan’s Lake Balkhash. The agreement was reached at the Dec. 3 One Water Summit in Riyadh.
Photo credit: Maxim Petricuk. Click to see the map in full size. The map is designed by The Astana Times.
According to the ministry’s press service, the agreement provides for the allocation of a grant of 1.35 million euros (US$1.42 million) to the Kazakh Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation for the development of water resources management of Lake Balkhash. The French side will perform a large-scale study of the Lake basin, with the data used to establish a long-term master plan until 2040. It will describe steps for preserving the reservoir’s interior waters.
As part of the agreement, the French side will conduct a large-scale study of the Lake Balkhash basin. Photo credit: Kazakh Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation.
The Kazakh Ministry also signed a memorandum of understanding with BRGM for the development of bilateral cooperation in water resources.
“The trilateral agreement with AFD and BRGM is aimed at studying and sustainably managing water in the Lake Balkhash basin. The document provides for measuring and analyzing the state of water, modeling climatic and anthropogenic influences, as well as forecasting the water balance until 2040. One of the goals of the project is to optimize the operating mode of the Qapshagai (or Kapshagai) reservoir to stabilize the level of Lake Balkhash. Based on the results of the study, measures will be taken to clean the rivers, prevent soil degradation and water pollution, develop fisheries and ecotourism, and create a regulatory framework for the protection of the lake,” said Kazakh Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Nurzhan Nurzhigitov.
