Forum on the Caspian, Aral and Dead Seas-Perspective of Water Environmental Management and Politics


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KEYNOTE LECTURE

Some Environmental Economic Models of Kazakhstan

U.M. Sultangazin
Kazakh National Academy of Sciences and Kyoto University

The Republic of Kazakhstan is unique from the point of view of its territory and concentration of ecological problems. The vast territory and low concentration of population were the reasons of irresponsible treatment of the nature of Kazakhstan. The short-sighted policy of the former USSR turned many regions of Kazakhstan into military grounds for military complexes. Cotton policy led to the drying of the large sea and ploughing up of virgin lands caused erosion and degradation of vast areas in Kazakhstan. Analyzing this situation one can separate nine regions as the regions with especially unfavorable conditions. These territories are shown in Figure 1, where summarized estimation characteristics of the environment (air, water, soil) and animate nature (vegetation, fauna, human) are given.

For different reasons all the above mentioned regions stand before an ecological catastrophe, and the Aral region has already all features of an ecological catastrophe. Though the influence of the tragedy of the Aral region on global processes manifests itself even now, it will especially be significant in the next century.

As shown in Figure 1, the state of the environment in the Aral region is hazardous now, mainly caused by a sharp decrease of water flow from Syrdarya and Amudarya. Unwise policy of water usage has led to a catastrophic drying of the Aral sea and, as a consequence, led to the degradation of soil, vegetation, fauna and to a progressing process of aridization and desertification of adjacent territories. Understanding the problems of the Aral Sea basin and the Aral itself requires consideration of the correlation between the problems of Central Asia and its geographic, natural, economic characteristics, also with regard to its social and economic development. For a considerable period in this area, cotton plants occupied more than 50% of the better irrigation land and half of all water recourses were used for its irrigation. The Aral problems arose as a result of the irresponsible exploitation of water recourses and in addition to this, the arid climate, the water basin without effluent and the increasing water consumption. From 1966 onwards, water resources (including underground water) have been divided and distributed for the purpose of creation of national product (63 km³) and for inflow to the Aral sea (57 km³). After the well-known decision of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on increasing production of cotton, all former policies for water use were sharply changed. In that time some scientists, including the academician Gerasimov, appealed against the decision of he Party and they predicted dire consequences, but without success.

Following the decision, the irrigation and agriculture sectors grew to 60% of the GNP. The social-economic and environmental crisis arose as a result of the former Soviet Union's economic policy and the low level of existing agriculture technology. Over a 30 year period the inflow into the Aral sea dropped from 56 to 5-10 km³ per annum, and as a result the water level decreased by 17 meters, the sea's surface area decreased by 40% and its water volume by 60%. The water salinity reached 25-30g/liter, and this resulted in the loss of all fish species. Mineralization of water in Syrdarya (previously fresh) reached 3g/liter, 10 times the amount considered to be safe for the health. In the growing season, pollution of River Syrdarya by pesticides reached 11.3 times MPC (maximum permissible concentration), for nitrates it amounted to 46 times MPC, for DDT it was 0.26 mkg/liter (MPC=0). Concentration of DDT in water biocenoses amounted to 0.29 mkg/kg and for hexachloren this figure was 0.05 mkg/kg. The area of tugai woods and saksaul bushes deceased by 2 million hectares.

Significant aridization of the climate was observed. Winters became colder by 5-6°C and summer temperature increased by 2-3°C. The number of days with salt-dust storms increased nearly two times. The number of bird species decreased from 319 at the beginning of the 1950s to 169 at the end of the 1970s, and around 100 in the 1990s. Out of 70 mammal species previously inhabiting the estuary of Syrdarya only, 26 (mainly rodents) remain. In the Aral Sea region, the number of cases of enteric fever increased 30 times, jaundice 7 times, morbidity by tuberculosis and cancer exceeds the mean average for the CIS by 15 times.

The global character of the Aral tragedy should be emphasized here. Active desertification of adjacent territories and merging of the Aral's desert with Karakum and other deserts in this region may cause the creation of a new Sahara in the center of the Euro-Asian continent with all negative consequences following from this fact.

Another large region also having many features of an ecological catastrophe is the Caspian sea region. Extremely high technogenic stresses led to irreversible consequences for this region. The main form of pollution is associated with the exploitation of oil and gas deposits of which there are more than a hundred. Among these the Tengis oil deposits are the most significant, but their exploitation is difficult and dangerous due to the high oil pressures, a 20% sulphur content and the fact that the oil-bearing layers are located very deeply below ground.

At present, as a result of uranium mining, processing and transportation, an unfavorable radioactive situation in the Mangistau area exists. A large amount of low level radioactive oil waste has contaminated soil with radio nuclei on the territory of about 10,000m². In addition, there are nearly 540 tons of waste oil pipes from oil mining enterprises. Burial of uranium radioactive waste with a mass up to 50,000 tons is being undertaken with out of date technology and in the trenches without proper hydroisolation. In the region there were 140 anomalous places and 120 of them were in oil deposits. The uranium mining enterprises of this region also contain the most part of radioactive waste.

The ecological situation is especially hazardous in the region of Karachanac's oil complex. Recently these problems have been enhanced by the rise of water level in the Caspian sea and the degradation of coastal biocenoses. Some academic institutions are now investigating the ecological situation in the region and the reasons of the raising water level. They are also examining the coastal line of the Caspian sea, using remote sensing monitoring. Environmental

Monitoring in Kazakhstan

The Kazakh Academy of Science has made considerable efforts toward solving the problems of natural resources usage in the Republic. Research and development activities of a number of institutes during the last ten years have covered a wide scientific spectrum of the dynamically changing nature of Kazakhstan. Below we briefly discuss the work of these institutions and the valuable information they have collected.

The Institute of Hydrology and Hydrophysics (IHH) monitors environmental conditions from a monitoring station and undertakes hydrological testing in the Ili, Syrdarya delta and provides eco-hydrological forecasts of the state of the delta with estimates of groundwater pollution from pesticides and fertilizers. The Institute was also substantially involved with the construction of irrigation systems in the regions of Akdalinsk and Karatal.

The Institute of Geography (IG) investigates the hydro-ecological stability of the Aral Sea basin and the Balkhash and Alakol areas, and conducts studies on anthropogenic influences on deserts and geosystems; for example, the Aral-Caspian region. It also monitors glaciers at Pamir-Altai, Tien Shan mountain systems.

The Institute of Botany (IB) develops phitomeliorative recommendations for the arid areas of former seas and conducts investigations on the productivity of pastures, the biology and the ecology of plants in the Aral region. It studies changes in vegetation, water and salt balance in the southern Balkhash area.

The Institute of Soil Sciences (ISS) investigates ecological disturbances of soils in southern Kazakhstan, in the region of Aral sea, on the slopes of Kazakhstan's Tien Shan in the northern Kazakhstan industrial centers and adjacent territories.

The Institute of Zoology (IZ) studies variations in species of wild animals and their habitats and technogenic factors and agricultural activities severely influencing the flora and fauna of Kazakhstan. At the Institute of Zoology, the state of eco-systems have been analyzed based on surveys of the whole of Kazakhstan. This research has shown that the coastal regions of the Aral and Caspian seas are practically in a state of total degradation. The Ili-Balkhash region and the basins of Irtysh and Syrdarya rivers are also on the verge of a crisis.

The Institute of Space Research (ISR) conducts experimental investigations in the arid areas around the country and measures parameters such as surface and boundary atmosphere layers during dust storms.

In spite of rich data obtained from the various institutes of the Academy of Sciences it is difficult to obtain an accurate and comprehensive representation of the state of the national environment and the trends in the development of Kazakhstan. Ground monitoring is only carried out in a limited number of areas and the extrapolation to other regions is often to some degree approximate. Therefore, the application of remote sensing may be very useful in the future for Kazakhstan. In applying remote sensing, investigations carried out through testing grounds by the institutes will be of great importance when deciphering aerospace photographs.

It should be noted that monitoring should be considered as only one element of the environmental quality control system. The scheme of such a system is shown in Figure 2. As shown in this figure, three main components are included: monitoring, modeling and control.

The result of monitoring is a diagnosis of the state of the environment in the territory, modeling results in forecasts of the dynamics of the ecosystem development, and environmental control works out possible solutions making use of the diagnostic and forecasting data. Such a scheme seems to be the only reasonable approach to solving ecological problems at the present stage. The system of environmental monitoring for the territory of Kazakhstan is projected as a set of instruments oriented to solving concrete problems. The system will be developed as the new problems, referring to the blocks listed in Figure 3, will be included in the package. For example, for the atmosphere the following very important problems can be highlighted:

- dust storms in the Aral sea region, when million tons of salt are spread over a vast territory causing its desertification;

- gaseous accidental emissions from accidental breaks in pipes;

- state of snowcaps and icecaps in Pamir-Altai, Tien-Shan mountains;

- observation of the transfer of water vapor to Central Asia, which originates from the Atlantic Ocean.

Concrete tasks for other media are also developed. Work on the complex analysis, using mathematical models, is underway. Information technology in the form of data bases, transmission nets, interfaces etc., is the integrating factor for the whole system. Information obtained at three levels (space - air - ground) passes through the following stages: data acquisition, transmission, reception and primary data processing, archivation and the solution of applied problems.

The project envisages accomplishing all the stages mentioned above. Space observations should be provided by satellites of the type NOAA, RESURSES, LANDSAT and SPOT. Air observations are to be carried out on flying laboratories. Surface-based observations should be primarily conducted on the testing ground and in the neighborhoods of Almaty. The problems of net data transfer are extreme for Kazakhstan, and to solve these problems a lot of work should be done. At present the station for receiving and processing of space information of the Institute of Space Reassert operates in Almaty and receives information from the NOAA satellites. It develops systems of ecological monitoring of the Aral sea and adjacent territories. In the future the data from the surface stations should be transferred by relay nets into regional centers. All the information should be stored in the distributed data base for archivation. This data base will be the main source of information to manage the mitigation of economical and ecological problems.

Ecological monitoring is a complicated, hierarchical multilevel system which is composed of complex econometric, mathematical models and information engineering. The aims of this system are to determine the priorities for environmental protection and industrial restructuring. This system will involve techniques for regional environmental control and the efficient use of natural resources. Figure 4, presents a scheme for the integration of different functional subsystems (blocks) of ecological data and the interconnections and directions of information flows for the analysis of the ecological and social-economic situation at the Aral region. The economic data system is represented on the right side of the scheme and is based mainly on national statistical accounts. The blocks of GIS are presented on the left side of the scheme, and consists of two levels: high level (Global GIS) and lower (regional GIS). Economic data and the Global GIS are information used for econometric and mathematical modeling at a high level. We now consider some optimal problems for distribution of water resources between industries, regions and environmental control, and analysis of national statistical accounts.

The environmental-economic model of regions is presented as the following system of equations:

References:

Keeler E., Spence M., and Zeckhauser R. (1971). "The Optimal Control of Pollution." Journal of Economic Theory 4, 19-34

Matrosov, V., Onishi, A. (1991). "The Models, Methods, Software for Analyzing Global and Regional Stability of Development." Proceeding of Conference, Moskow (in Russian).

Seo, F. (1973). "Waste Disposal and Regional Planning." Discussion Paper No.062, Kyoto Institute of Economic Research, Kyoto, Japan

Seo, F., Sakawa, M. (1979). "An Evaluation Method for Environmental-Systems planning: an alternative utility approach." Environment and Planning A, volume 11, p. 149-168

Sultangazin, U. (1994). "Kazakhstan's Science about the Ecological Problems of the Republic and the Perspectives of their Solution." To be presented at International Conference 'Ecomonitoring 94', Almaty

Sultangazin, U., Tsukatani, T. (1995). "Modeling of the Kazakhstan Economy and Environment." Discussion Paper No. 416, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

Viculov,V., Gurman, V., Danilina, E. (1990). "The Ecological-Economic strategy of Regional Development." Nauka, Novosibirsk (in Russian)

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Figure 1: Ecostress Regions Kazakhstan