Kazachstan announces 42% increase in Northern Aral Sea
3 Feb 2025 by The Water Diplomat
On January 13th, the Astana Times in Kazakhstan reported an increase of water volume of 42% -reaching 27 billion cubic meters- in the Northern Aral Sea, as a result of the first phase of the project to preserve the Aral Sea. Results show that the salinity of the water in this section of the Aral Sea decreased almost by a factor of four, while the annual volume of fisheries increased to 8,000 tons. “These figures are the result of two years of systematic work. We have reached mutual understanding with neighbouring countries on the protection and equitable sharing of water resources in transboundary rivers,” said Kazakh Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Nurzhan Nurzhigitov during a meeting with the public in the Aral district of the Kyzylorda Region.
Increased diversion of water for irrigation purposes during the Soviet era has led the level of the Aral Sea to decrease by more than 20 meters since 1950, causing the sea to separate into two water bodies, the Southern Aral Sea (SAS) and the Northern Aral Sea (NAS). As a result, by the 1980’s, the water volume of the lake had reduced to almost half of its original, with an associated increase in salinity due to evaporation and reduced inflow of freshwater from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers which feed the Aral Sea, making the sea’s water unfit to drink and causing the entire fishing industry to disappear. The exposed seabed created a new desert area, in which winds would transport salts such as sodium chloride, sodium sulphate and magnesium chloride, together with pesticide residues, across the region.
These developments have become all the more concerning given that much of the water in the region originates from glaciers, which have reduced in volume by approximately one third since 1950, contributing less water to the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers. By 2014, the surface area of the Aral Sea had shrunk by 50.000 square km, the exposed bed into what is now called the Aralkum desert.
In the 1980’s, the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia was established in order to manage water resources and maintaining the sustainability of natural processes along transboundary waters in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. In 1993, these five countries established the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS), with the aim to “develop and fund environmental and applied research projects and programs in order to improve the ecological situation in the areas affected by the Aral Sea catastrophe and address the socio-economic issues in the region”.
Since 2024, Kazakhstan has taken over the presidency of IFAS. Together with the Roadmap 2022-2024 for Regional Cooperation and the second phase of the NASDR Project, the area is slowly being restored. Sustainable economic, social, and environmental activities in Kazakhstan’s Kyzylorda region are being restored through the development of fisheries, livestock farming, tourism, and afforestation. Overall water management systems in the Aral-Syr Darya basin are being improved.
Kazakhstan is making special efforts to restore the ecology in the region in a sustainable way. In early January, France 24 reported that the northern part of the Aral Sea had nearly doubled in volume since 2008, by preventing water from flowing out of the sea. In addition, Deutsche Welle highlights examples of forest planting in the Norh Aral Sea region, whereby black saxaul trees are planted on a 500-hectare (1,235-acre) plot of land to help hold back the desert and make the area more resilient to the impacts of climate change. This project,called “Oasis”, in cooperation with IFAS, was supported by USAID and is part of Kazakhstan’s efforts to restore the Aral Sea ecosystem. Since 2021 a broader national afforestation programme is underway. The country aims to plant 2 billion trees by 2027. From 2021 to 2024, 1.1 billion seedlings were planted over a total of 736,800 hectares, including 306 million seedlings planted in 2024 on 205,200 hectares. For 2025, the goal is to plant 336.5 million seedlings across 494,000 hectares.
Since 2024, Kazakhstan has occupied the role of the presidency of IFAS. Together with the Roadmap 2022-2024 for Regional Cooperation and the second phase of
In 2019, the World bank initiated the North Aral Sea Development and Revitalisation Project to improve water resources management in Kazakhstan's NAS-Syr Darya basin and promote sustainable natural resources management based economic activities in the Kyzylorda region, which is seen as one of the most impoverished regions in the area. The second phase of this project will initiate the construction of the Kok Saray counter-regulator to improve water resource management in the Kazakh part of the Syr Darya river basin. Thanks to this project, the volume of water in the northern part should increase by 5 km³.