ASTANA, Kazakhstan, January 31. Kazakhstan will build 20 new and reconstruct 15 existing water reservoirs by 2030, Trend reports.
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.
As Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Nurzhan Nurzhigitov said, the document was developed taking into account an analysis of the current situation in the industry and the best international experience.
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.