Supplying rural Kazakhstan with safe water and sanitation

Access to safe drinking water and sanitation is essential for both individual and population health as well as for quality of life and dignity. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) require nations to ensure adequate water supply and sanitation for all. For Kazakhstan, this means that rural areas will need a much stronger attention as they have been rather neglected in efforts to comply with the previous UN Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). A new massive drinking water program in Kazakhstan has the aim to cover 80% of the rural people with access to tap water from a centralized piped system by 2020. This study aimed at establishing a foundation for a management system to better supply rural Kazakhstan with safe access to water and sanitation. The data collection included interviews with households in 37 villages in the Pavlodar area, Kazakhstan. The results can be seen as guidelines that can help to illuminate some of the uncounted challenges in future effort to meet the SDG targets in Kazakhstan as well as other similar areas in Central Asia. The study examined the current access to drinking water and sanitation services and willingness of people to pay to maintain the access to piped water in rural areas in Northern Kazakhstan, in order to establish a foundation for a water and sanitation management systems. The results show that there are several types of raw water sources and the most common one is private boreholes. Despite the efforts to provide people with potable water during the recently completed national water supply program there is still lack of access to tap water from the piped water supply system as well as access to a safe sanitation. And this can be explained by a lack of baseline data on access to water and sanitation. The baseline data reflecting the real situation in terms of water supply and sanitation are needed for targeting and designing the improvements. Another reason for failure of previous water supply programs is that interventions so far have been top-down. Furthermore, the responsible authorities need to appreciate that national drinking water programs need to be based on surveys of existing water and sanitation service as well as a shift to more bottom-up and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene oriented planning approaches. Results show that a majority of water source users want to connect to and pay for the maintenance of the piped water system and enjoy tap water at home. The study determined important determinants for the willingness to connect and pay; however, they are specific to each water user. Thus, integration of local water users is crucially important, since they are the beneficiaries of any water intervention program. This will show the actual need for any drinking water intervention and willingness to use and pay for the water supply systems. It will not be possible for Kazakhstan to reach 80% coverage of tap water from a centralized piped system to the rural people by 2020 according to the national water program whereas the safe access to WASH for rural people is the most important. In any case, considerable progress can only be made by carefully managing the existing water supply and sanitation system in joint collaboration with the local users. Hence, we see the present results as important first step in this direction

Twenty-three unsolved problems in hydrology (UPH) – a community perspective

This paper is the outcome of a community initiative to identify major unsolved scientific problems in hydrology motivated by a need for stronger harmonisation of research efforts. The procedure involved a public consultation through on-line media, followed by two workshops through which a large number of potential science questions were collated, prioritised, and synthesised. In spite of the diversity of the participants (230 scientists in total), the process revealed much about community priorities and the state of our science: a preference for continuity in research questions rather than radical departures or redirections from past and current work. Questions remain focussed on process-based understanding of hydrological variability and causality at all space and time scales. Increased attention to environmental change drives a new emphasis on understanding how change propagates across interfaces within the hydrological system and across disciplinary boundaries. In particular, the expansion of the human footprint raises a new set of questions related to human interactions with nature and water cycle feedbacks in the context of complex water management problems. We hope that this reflection and synthesis of the 23 unsolved problems in hydrology will help guide research efforts for some years to come

Assessing wastewater processes at oil refinery industry in Kazakhstan

This paper presents the first attempt to assess the wastewater treatment processes at the oil refinery sector in Kazakhstan and evaluate to what extent these processes follow international and national regulations regarding industrial waste water treatment. The assessment was performed considering wastewater discharge from refining processes at three factories in the country. While Kazakhstani environmental regulation promote the polluter pay principle and follow WHO guidelines, oil refinery factories in Kazakhstan still exceed the permissible concentration of pollutants in discharged wastewater. The national regulation allows discharge of wastewater to natural or artificial ponds by not exceeding the pollutant concentrations already existing in the pond. Therefore, the factories use ponds with already high concentration of pollutants, consequently allowing discharge of high concentration of pollutants (total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) exceeds concentration by 30-80 times, ammonia (NH4+) by 25 times, total dissolved solids (TDS) by 6 times, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) by 6 times and surfactants by 5 times) to pond. The reason for the initial high pond concentration is a result of a time gap between the start of pollution discharge by the factories and start of the environmental regulations. This leads to no incentive to treat wastewater in an efficient way. Additionally, the national law lacks regulations regarding detailed methodology to assess the pollutant substances in the discharged wastewater. Thus, the assessment by environmental authorities for each oil refinery is negotiated separately between the factory and the governmental body, giving the factory a strong position to define the parameters assessing the wastewater. As such, none of the factories provides analyses of, e.g., heavy metal contamination in discharged wastewater. TPH concentration in wastewater is often exceeded at each factory and there is no analysis done for different hydrocarbon fraction. Consequently, it is strongly recommended to provide a unified and transparent methodology for the country ́s oil refinery industry to assess all important pollutants in discharged wastewater and to include all types of hydrocarbon fractions

The future of water management in central Asia

Central Asia is an increasingly important strategic geopolitical region. During the latest decades, the region has often been identified as close to potential conflict regarding water usage. This includes the sharing of water from the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya in the Aral Sea Basin. The Aral Sea disaster has exposed a complex picture of water needs and potential political conflict. Rapid population increase together with climate change impacts are likely to further aggravate the short-and long-term future precarious situation for water management in the region. This Special Issue focuses on present and future water management issues in Central Asia in view of future climate changes and how these will affect socioeconomic development. Central Asia is, in general, water rich; however, exercising efficient and fair water management will be important in view of future population increase and climate change. At the same time, water and natural resource development is a cornerstone in all the Central Asian republics. Especially, water resources are, to a great extent, shared between all five republics. A common ground for water-sharing is, therefore, of utmost importance

Access to drinking water and sanitation in rural Kazakhstan

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) require nations to ensure adequate water supply for all. For Kazakhstan, this means that rural areas will need much stronger attention as they have been rather neglected in efforts to comply with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This study aims to establish a baseline data concerning the current situation in villages that will need interventions according to the SDGs. The study was performed by means of questionnaires. The results should be seen as initial guidelines that can help to illuminate some of the uncounted challenges in future efforts to meet the SDG targets. As hardly any information exists about sanitation in rural Kazakhstan, the study essentially focuses on water services. The results show that 65% of rural dwellers want to connect and pay for the piped water supply. At the same time, about 80% have toilets outside their home. Consequently, the water program aiming at providing 80% of rural people with access to tap water from a centralized piped system will not be possible. However, by carefully managing the existing water supply and sanitation system in joint collaboration with the local users, significant progress can be made. The present results show the important first steps that need to be taken in this direction