Since the beginning of 2024, 1.1 billion cubic meters of water have flowed into the Northern Aral Sea, the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation of Kazakhstan informed.
This means that as of today, the volume of water in the Northern Aral Sea is 21.4 billion cubic meters.
At the 86th meeting of the Interstate Coordinating Water Management Commission, which includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, the parties agreed that during the irrigation season, 997 million cubic meters of water would flow into the Northern Aral, with an inflow of at least 30 cubic meters per second, according to the report.
Currently, the sea receives 50 cubic meters of water per second, whereas a year ago, the inflow was 6 cubic meters per second.
Previously, the construction of the Kokaral Dam, which separated the Northern Aral Sea from the Southern Aral, was completed. This allowed the water level in the Northern Aral to rise.
Since the dam's commissioning to date, 46.6 billion cubic meters of water have flowed from the Syr Darya River into the Northern Aral Sea. In the last 7 years, 13.3 billion cubic meters of water have flowed into the sea. In recent years, the volume of water in the Northern Aral had been decreasing, but since the beginning of 2024, it has started to increase again and has now reached 21.4 billion cubic meters, said Moldir Abdualiyeva, an official representative of Kazakhstan's Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation.
According to the ministry, 75% of the Syr Darya River's flow is formed in Kyrgyzstan, 20% in Uzbekistan, and 5% in Kazakhstan.
CentralasianLIGHT.org
June 25, 2024