With the support from international financial organizations, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation is modernizing 1,485 irrigation canals with a total length of over 6,000 km, according to Minister of Water Resources Nurzhan Nurzhigitov.
Last year, the ministry completed the reconstruction of 162 canals with a total length of 778 km.
By the end of this year, the plan is to commission 275 canals with a total length of 962 km. This will improve irrigation of about 200,000 hectares of farmland.
The modernization of the canals is expected to reduce water losses during transportation by 25% and provide agriculture with additional volumes of water.
By the end of the year, Kazakhstan will also put into operation reservoirs that will allow for an additional accumulation of about 180 million cubic meters of flood and melt water.
Construction of four new reservoirs will begin this year with the support of the Islamic Development Bank.
According to Nurzhigitov, the president of Kazakhstan set the tasks of accumulating melt water and reducing losses during its transportation, modernizing the water infrastructure, eliminating the “black market” for water, and resolving issues of transboundary water use. To fulfill these tasks, the ministry is working on a large-scale modernization of the water infrastructure, which will make it possible to save and accumulate up to 10 billion cubic meters of water.
