Thanks to the use of water-saving technologies used by agrarians of the Kyzylorda region of Kazakhstan, it was possible to save 200 million cubic meters of water and send them to The Aral Sea. This is reported by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation of the Republic.
According to the agency, water-saving technologies were applied to 55 thousand hectares of local rice fields, the total area of which in the region is 84 thousand hectares. Thanks to this, about 1 billion cubic meters of water were sent to the sea during the irrigation season this year, which is 3 times more than last year.
Since the beginning of the year, about two billion cubic meters of water have been sent to the Northern Aral Sea. Its level in the sea has reached 22 billion cubic meters.
"In addition to water diplomacy and close work with our colleagues from Central Asian countries, the introduction of water-saving technologies plays an important role in filling the Aral Sea. Their use allows you to save hundreds of millions of cubic meters of water and send them to the sea. To this end, we have increased the subsidization of farmers' costs for the introduction of water-saving technologies from 50% to 80%. And over the next three years, the amount of subsidies for farms using irrigation water using water-saving technologies will increase from 50% to 85%," said Nurzhan Nurzhigitov, Head of the Ministry of Water of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The water level in the Aral Sea began to decline in the 1960s of the last century. In 1989, the sea broke up into two reservoirs connected by the Berg Strait, which has disappeared at this time — the Northern (Small) and Southern (Large) The Aral Sea.