Ecological problems of Kazakhstan

We stepped into the new millennium and, looking back on the past, we can say with confidence that in many ways civilization has made a huge step in development. However, along with the greatest achievements, mankind has faced global environmental problems, which were largely due to the active development of heavy industry, etc.

One of the countries that fully felt the depressing effect of the undermined ecology, can be considered Kazakhstan, which today has a vulnerable natural environment. The territory of this republic is mainly occupied by steppes, deserts and semi-deserts. There are intercontinental seas in Kazakhstan: Aral, Caspian, Balkhash, Alakol, Zaisan.

The ecology of Kazakhstan is in a catastrophic situation and is one of the most sickly topics in this country. The anthropogenic pressures that this republic is experiencing take away all the forces from nature and disrupt the natural ability of the environment to self-repair.

Extensive development of agriculture leads to land degradation and impoverishment of landscapes. Sixty percent of the entire area of the Republic of Kazakhstan is severely deserted, which, in turn, reduces the fertility of soils and reduces the productivity of crop production and livestock.

The irrational use of natural resources and the development of irrigated agriculture led to a shortage of water in the basins of small and large rivers in the south of Kazakhstan: Ili, Syr Darya and others. Over a ten-year period, the area of the Aral Sea has almost halved. Lake Balkhash expects the same fate, if urgent measures are not taken.

Kazakhstan occupies the last place in the CIS in providing fresh water to the residents of the republic. That is, in the country it is sorely lacking.

Ecological problems of Kazakhstan are aggravated also by the fact that the surface of reservoirs is polluted. They emit about two hundred million cubic meters of dirty sewage. It was found about three thousand foci, infecting groundwater, the area of which is several hundred square kilometers.

The problem of ecology, such as air pollution, is mainly due to the fact that a large number of enterprises, plants of this republic, especially processing and energy profiles, have an outdated and imperfect cleaning and filtration technology. This contributes to an increase in the number of hazardous emissions into the atmosphere.

Ecological problems of Kazakhstan are most clearly manifested wherever a large number of people live. It is noticed that in Karaganda and Pavlodar oblasts per one inhabitant in the beginning - the middle of the nineties there were 10.5 tons of toxic emissions. Annually, six million pollutants enter the air, half of which are provided by heat power engineering. Also, harmful waste comes from the production of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, chemistry and petrochemistry.

Ecological problems of Kazakhstan can affect the Caspian Sea and Aktau. Factories-giants of the industry of the Pre-Caspian mining and metallurgical enterprise dumped polluted waters into the basin, which is near the city of Aktau. At that place, the technogenic Lake Koshkar-Ata was formed, which contains a whole table of Mendeleev's toxic and radioactive compounds. The Koshkar-Ata River and the Caspian Sea are separated by a small strip of about eight kilometers long, so there is a possibility of contamination of the Caspian Sea by the waters of the man-made reservoir. This reservoir is also dangerous because it periodically dries up and the plant suspends emissions. Dust is formed from toxic compounds.

Mining and metallurgical complexes undermine the state of ecology in Kazakhstan. As a result of their activities, about twenty billion tons of waste and 230 tons of radioactive metals accumulated on the territory of the country. Most of the toxic waste is placed in areas that are not suitable for storage. In the late nineties - early twenty-first centuries their education grew from 92 to 150 million. They are concentrated in Karaganda, East Kazakhstan, Pavlodar and Kostanay regions.

Unfortunately, it is the environmental problems of Kazakhstan that are the main reason why the country's population is at high risk of oncological diseases.