Abstract:

The global climate is rapidly changing in the past 100 years. The IPCC’s first report in 1990 suggested an increase in global average temperature between about 0.15°C and 0.3°C per decade for 1990 to 2005 that can now be compared with observed values of about 0.2°C per decade (IPCC, 2007). Warming is expected to be greatest over northern latitudes land and least over the Southern Ocean. That makes Europe and Central Asia Region vulnerable to more frequent and severe extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and heat waves.

Kazakhstan is a landlocked country and about 90% of its territory lies in the arid zone, represented by steppe, semi desert and desert landscapes. Analysis of climate models together with the observational data enables to project future changes covering a range of possible futures including idealized or worst emission scenarios. An expected rise of mean annual temperature in Kazakhstan is 1.4C by 2030 and 4.6C by 2085 that is higher than the projected global average surface air warming for six SRES emissions marker scenarios. The best estimate for the high scenario (A1FI) is 4.0C whereas the best estimate for the low scenario (B1) is just 1.8C (IPCC, 2007). One of the projected consequences of climate change is an increase of water resources in mountain areas and decrease in the plain areas. That assumption raises the water security concern in Kazakhstan as less than the half of the surface water resources of the country is formed within its border, whereas major rivers are originated in the mountainous areas of China, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.

Decentralization of water allocation after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to tensions between interdependent states within shared watersheds. Kazakhstan is a country in transition experiencing a rapid urbanization process. There is a trend of increase of urban population by the movement of people from rural areas. That fact leads to an increase in water demand.

The current study among other things examines the concept of sustainable development by studying environmental, economic and social aspects and a systematic approach to assess urban water supply. Besides that, the project is carried out integrating the local population to work on climate-justified strategy for sustainable urban water supply system.