The water balance of Northern Kazakhstan's water management basins estimated by remote sensing and global datasets combined with hydrologic information
2025-07-23 11:36
The water balance of Northern Kazakhstan's water management basins estimated by remote sensing and global datasets combined with hydrologic information
Project goal: The assessment of water availability in the last 20 years by quantifying temporal and spatial variability of water balance components (precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff, storage) in 5 water management basins (Zhaiyk-Caspian, Yesil, Tobyl-Torgai, Nura-Sarysu, and Ertis) that cover 69% of Kazakhstan’s territory using remote sensing products, global and local hydro-climatic datasets
Project description: The recent years have demonstrated the proneness of Kazakhstan to water related problems, climatic risks and drawbacks of the existing water management system resulting in its incapability to solve recurrent problems. The recent establishment of Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation emphasizes that the Government will pay increased attention to water resources management, its problems and water related research is valuable as never before. Despite the Government’s plans to significantly boost agricultural and industrial production, there is a notable absence of comprehensive studies on the country's water resources in recent decades. Adaptation to climate change and mitigating its impacts requires a thorough understanding of water resources and their dynamic patterns. In-situ measurements of hydrological cycle components by Kazhydromet (precipitation, potential evaporation, discharge etc.) are not dense enough to cover the large spatial scales that represent surface heterogeneity or to provide an understanding of the water balance dynamics at larger spatial scales. The new methods developed in the last decades such as satellite-based hydrological and climatological products (e.g., GLEAM, GRACE), land surface models outputs and climate reanalysis based on data assimilation (e.g., ERA5, GLDAS) are more available these days allowing the conduction of in-depth basin studies. The current project aims to evaluate water balance of large Northern Kazakh water management basins (Zhaiyk-Caspian, Yesil, Tobyl-Torgai, Nura-Sarysu, and Ertis) in the last 20 years and to understand the intra-annual dynamics and long-term trends of its components. The findings of this research will facilitate decision makers (e.g., Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation) with the assessment of the water balance in 5 important water management basins using remote sensing products and to provide verified estimates of water resources availability.
Project facilitators: PI - Dr. Vadim Yapiyev, Senior Researcher. Nurlan Ongdas, Researcher
Project partners: 1) Egor Prikaziuk, Water Resources Department, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands 2) Sifan A. Koriche, Alabama Water Institute, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA
Realisation period: 2024-2026
Expected results: The findings are expected to provide novel and applied methods and datasets for catchment water balance investigation in a semi-arid climate. Overall, the suggested project is expected to offer the following impacts on science and technology linked with social and economic benefits:
• Bias corrected datasets of remote sensing-based components of water balance model for 5 water management basins of Kazakhstan
• Identification of temporal and spatial changes in water balance components in the last 20 years
• Developed geoportal with the demonstration of project results for dissemination and use by other researchers.
Methodology: Water Balance, statistical data analysis, remote sensing.