Kazakhstan and France Ink Agreement on Protecting Lake Balkhash at One Water Summit

Photo credit: Maxim Petricuk. The map is designed by The Astana Times.

The 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 enhance cooperation in preserving Kazakhstan's Lake Balkhash. The agreement was finalized at the One Water Summit in Riyadh on December 3, The Caspian Post reports citing foreign media.

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.

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.