Kazakhstan's Initiative to Restore North Aral Sea

From October 2024 to January 2025, the North Aral Sea received one billion cubic meters of water, surpassing the planned volume by 100 million cubic meters, according to the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation.

In accordance with the agreements signed with the Central Asian countries, a total of 1.6 billion cubic meters of water will be supplied to the North Aral Sea by March 2025, The Caspian Post reports citing Kazinform.

Today, the overall volume of water in the North Aral Sea is approximately 22.1 billion cubic meters (18.9 billion cubic meters in early 2022). It is expected that by 2025, this volume will reach 23.4 billion cubic meters.

The area of the North Aral Sea keeps expanding, having reached 3,065 square kilometers today. This is 111 square kilometers more than in early 2022.

As a result, water salinity level has decreased and the population of 22 fish species has been restored. Annual fishery volumes reached 8 thousand tons.

The project of preserving the Kokaral dam and restoring the Delta of the Syr Darya River is at the completion stage.

The application of water saving technologies and levelling of rice fields in Kyzylorda region enabled to save around 200 million cubic meters of water, which were later supplied to the North Aral Sea. 55,000 hectares of rice fields were levelled, which allowed to increase average yield from 40-55 centners to 70-80 centners per a hectare.

The government has raised the subsidies for farmers’ spending on building infrastructure, acquisition and installation of water saving technologies from 50% to 80%. The amount of irrigation water subsidies for the farmers using water saving technologies has been increased to 85% depending on the tariff.

The greening of the Aral Sea drained bottom is underway, with 4.4 million seedlings planted.

By 2025, the total area of landscaped Aral Sea bottom is set to reach 1.1 million hectares.

On January 1, 2024, the Republic of Kazakhstan assumed chairmanship in the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS). The Head of State, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, has been elected the President of the IFAS until 2026. The Work Plan of the IFAS Executive Committee for 2024-2026 was adopted. The document includes around 40 events in 10 various areas.

The implementation of the President’s instructions will let employ as many as 2,000 people. The increase of the volume and area of the North Aral Sea will let decrease water salination level, which contribute to preserving its biodiversity and development of Kyzylorda region’s fishery sector.

Previously, it was reported that 475,000 hectares of drained bottom of the Aral Sea had been planted with saksaul trees.