Exploitable results Study of the alternative water resources of the Aral Sea region: ecological policy, assessment and prediction The territory of the Aral Sea Region is known as an ecological disaster zone. Health specialists have identified high and increasing mineralisation of potable water, and also the abundance of highly toxic pollutants (mainly pesticides) in water, air and food, which contribute to the deterioration of the population's health. It is now obvious that, in order to provide reasonable living conditions to the population, it is first of all necessary to drastically improve the quality of the water dedicated to human needs. Due to their intensive pollution by industrial wastes and by drainage waters from irrigated fields during the last 15-20 years, the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers can no longer be considered as a source of safe and sustainable water supply. In such a situation, a number of scientists consider that the population's water supply must be achieved through a more comprehensive use of fresh and even sub-saline groundwater resources. According to the data obtained of all the liquid freshwater on the Aral Sea Basin, about 50% is groundwater. Much of this water flows through subterranean interstices and fissures from the soil surface, where it enters the ground as infiltrating precipitation and snowmelt, to streams and rivers, from whence it will ultimately flow to the Aral Sea. The drinking water supply of the people is one of the serious problems within the Aral Sea Region. One of the promising approaches to solving this problem is the extended and sustainable use of groundwater. The Aral Sea Basin aquifer system is however complex and consists of at least four individual aquifers. Due to the fairly complex hydro-geological conditions in the Aral Sea Region, previous studies of this area have led to different results. As a matter of fact, the fresh aquifer layers are bounded by formations containing highly mineralised groundwater. Also, due to intensive water disposal and irrigation, the infiltration of saline waters into the exploited formations is possible, which can result in the deterioration of their quality. This conclusion is based on results obtained by using a regional groundwater model, which encompassed a part of the Aral Sea Region including the Syr Darya artesian basin and the southern part of the South-Torgai basin early in the 1990s. The overall objective of this modelling was to study the main features of the groundwater formations both in natural and exploited conditions, and to forecast their evolution under two different groundwater exploitation scenarios. The results of this modelling can be considered as the basis for the realisation of the work to be undertaken within the framework of the new INTAS projects 1003 and 1014. The realisation of these projects will allow - for the first time- the combination of the already available as well as the new geo-hydro-data within an integrated computer model. This model should reflect both the geological setting of the investigated territory as well as the genesis and appearance of various groundwater types. Based on this model, various schemes of groundwater exploitation could be investigated and evaluated. The results of such investigations and modelling will also allow the update of knowledge on the fresh groundwater resources assessment in this region, the evaluation of the groundwater discharge to the Aral Sea, help in identifying new fresh groundwater resources, and optimise their use for supplying the population of the Aral Sea Region with good quality potable water according to the goal and purposes of the projects. Searching for OpenAIRE data... There was an error trying to search data from OpenAIRE No results available
