Water Scarcity in Kazakhstan: Ecological Challenges and Sustainable Solutions

Abstract

Disappearing lake, transboundary rivers, and lack of clean drinking water: Kazakhstan, with its vast steppes and semi-arid climate, is facing one of the most drastic ecological challenges of our time: the growing shortage of fresh water and overwhelming challenges in sustaining the availability of the water to local people across the country due to ecological reduction. While ecological degradation is being observed in many forms—loss of biodiversity, climate change, and air pollution—the reduction of freshwater resources stands out as an urgent environmental and socio-economical problem.