Environmental Effects of River Management

Water scarcity threatens economic and social gains. It undermines environmental sustainability... And it is a potent fuel for wars and conflict (UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon)

Water as a resource is critically important to existence of people and does not have any alternatives. While the planet is mainly covered by water, the proportion of fresh drinking water is relatively small reaching only 2.5%. The rest is saline water of seas and oceans. It is estimated that nearly 70% of this small portion is stored in ice caps, glaciers and permafrost. The remaining 30% of accessible water (about 1% of all fresh water), in turn, is distributed unequally and is under pressure due to constantly increasing global population and also changing climate (IBRD 2013). Lakes contain about 0.5% of all fresh water, ground water reaches nearly 0.05%, and water in rivers makes another 0.025% (Britannica.com 2015). The role of rivers as a source of fresh water is obvious, however it also plays a critical role in trade, transport, agriculture, industry and international relations.

This has always been the case in Kazakhstan, the biggest landlocked country in the world. Throughout centuries rivers have played an important role for local people as they have served as sources of fresh water, means of running agriculture, transportation, trade, etc. Moreover, they have played a significant role for existence of ecosystems and local biodiversity. However, human actions and resultant climate change as well as the inter-state problems in terms of rivers management have led to various environmental and political challenges. The latter has been the major problem during recent several decades. A number of most significant rivers in Kazakhstan are, in fact, transboundary. For example, Irtysh river runs from the territory of China to Kazakhstan and flows to the Russian Federation, river Ili also originate from China, and rivers Amudarya and Syrdarya are shared between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The problems of these transboundary rivers are associated mainly with pollution, including pollution by chemicals and metal substances. Moreover, among other common sources of problems is the fact that the country in which the river originates can build water collection reservoirs as well as dams. Sometimes, the flow of a river is diverted for sustaining local agriculture in neighboring countries. These actions consequently lead to various issues on the territory of Kazakhstan. In fact, polluted water poison people and other habitation along the rivers, water level decreases, quality of water deteriorates.

According to Vinokurov et al 2005, the mentioned above challenges created due to a number of mismanagement issues. For example, authors state that a number of aspects can lead to conflict situations between Russia, Kazakhstan and China over the river Irtysh. Among them a lack of coordination of water users’ interests in the basin of transboundary river, redistribution