Viewed from the sky, with its turquoise waters stretching across the desert expanse in a crescent shape, you can understand why Lake Balkhash is called the “Pearl of Kazakhstan.”
But pollution, climate change and overuse are threatening the existence of one of the world’s most unique wetlands.
Balkhash, the largest lake in Central Asia after the Caspian Sea, has salt water on one side, but fresh water on the other. In such a peculiar environment, rare species have been found in abundance. Until now.
“All the troubles of Balkhash are before my eyes,” fisherman Alexei Grebennikov told AFP from the deck of his boat on the northern coast. The water near the boat is sometimes salty, sometimes fresh.
“The fish are decreasing, it’s devastating, the lake is silting up,” the 50-year-old warned.
A dredger tasked with clearing the small harbor, near the industrial town of Balkhach, stood rusting and unused, appearing to be stuck in Soviet times.
“We used to take tourists underwater fishing. Now this place has become a swamp,” Grebennikov said.
In the city, scientist Olga Sharipova was studying the changes.
“Balkhash is the country’s largest fishing region. But when the water level drops, the number of fish decreases because conditions for breeding are disrupted,” he told AFP.
And its level is now just one metre away from the critical threshold where it could tip over towards disaster.
Unexpected relief came this spring, when unprecedented floods prompted Kazakh authorities to divert 3.3 million cubic metres of water to Balkhash.
The Caspian was also filled with six billion cubic metres of water.
China is ‘overusing’ water
But a few extra centimetres won’t change the long-term trend.
“The level of Balkhash has been falling everywhere since 2019, mainly due to a reduction in the flow of the Ili River from neighboring China,” Sharipova said.
The fate of all the large lakes of Central Asia, also known as closed seas, is also worrying.
The Aral Sea has nearly disappeared, and the situation is worrying for the Caspian Sea and Issyk-Kul Lake in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan.
According to the leading scientific journal Nature, these islands, located on dry land and isolated from the ocean, are particularly vulnerable to “disturbances caused by global warming and human activities”.
Rising temperatures cause evaporation to accelerate, as water resources diminish due to the melting of surrounding glaciers.
These issues are further complicated by the economic importance of Balkhash, which lies on the route of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project also known as the New Silk Road.
A 2021 study published in the journal “Water” by scientists at the University of Oxford concluded that the lake’s degradation was caused by China’s overuse of the Ili River, which feeds it for its agriculture, including cotton.
“If the hydro-climatic regime of Ili for 2020-2060 remains unchanged compared with the past 50 years and agriculture in China continues to expand, the pressure on water supply will increase in the future,” the study said.
Beijing is a major economic partner of Kazakhstan but is less keen to cooperate on water issues.
“Drafting and signing an agreement with China on sharing the waters of trans-border rivers is an important issue,” the Kazakh water resources ministry told AFP.
It states, “Its main purpose is to supply the necessary amount of water to preserve Balkhash.”
Scientist Olga Sharipova said the level of Balkhash has been falling everywhere since 2019 (File)
Photo Credit: AFP
Heavy pollution
“Water is being drained out through siphons, leading to pollution caused by heavy metals, pesticides and other harmful substances,” officials said, without naming the culprits.
The city of Balkhash was founded around Kazakhmys, Kazakhstan’s largest copper producer.
While vacationing on the municipal beach of Balkhash, one can often see the smoking chimneys of the local metallurgical plant.
Health officials say lung cancer rates here are nearly 10 times the regional average, which is already the highest in the nation.
Despite being penalized for violating environmental standards, Kazakhmys has denied that it is the main polluter of the lake, and has vowed to reduce pollution by renovating its equipment.
“Kazakhmys is carrying out protective work to prevent environmental disasters in Balkhash,” the company’s ecological engineer Sherkhan Rustamov told AFP.
Meanwhile, the plant continues to dump industrial waste into another huge reservoir located right next to the lake.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
