Quality of Drinking Water in the Balkhash District of Kazakhstan’s Almaty Region

Abstract

The thinly populated Balkhash District of Kazakhstan’s Almaty Region lies in the lower reaches of the Ili-Balkhash basin, which is shared by China and Kazakhstan. The district is arid and heavily dependent on inflows of surface water, which are threatened by the effects of upstream population growth, economic development, and climate change. The quality of drinking water from centralized water systems and tube wells in nine villages of the district was analyzed, and the organoleptic properties of water from these sources was also assessed by an expert and via surveys of local residents. Although most samples met governmental standards for the absence of chemical impurities, high concentrations of mineralization, chlorides, boron, iron, and/or uranium were present in some well water samples. Levels of these pollutants were as much as 4-fold higher than governmental maxima and as much as 16-fold higher than concentrations reported previously in surface water. All centralized water samples met standards for absence of microbial contamination, but total microbial counts in some well water samples exceeded standards. Organoleptic standards were met by all the water from five villages, but centralized water from one village and well water from four villages failed to meet standards based on expert judgment. Residents were, for the most part, more satisfied with centralized rather than well water, but there was no obvious relationship between the failure of water to meet standards and the locations or populations of the settlements. This is the first comprehensive assessment of groundwater used for drinking in the lower Ili-Balkhash basin, and although it relies on a limited number of samples, it nevertheless provides evidence of potentially serious groundwater contamination in the Balkhash District. It is thus imperative that additional and more detailed studies be undertaken.

Use of Heavy Metal Content and Modified Water Quality Index to Assess Groundwater Quality in a Semiarid Area

“…Groundwater plays a major role in supplying water for drinking, agricultural, and industrial uses [1][2][3]. For arid and semiarid regions, groundwater resources are especially important in terms of quantity and quality.…”

“…Grading water quality indicators largely depends on indicator concentration and the rate of relative toxicity. One of the most applicable methods is Water Quality Index (WQI) that summarizes the quality of water for drinking and other purposes [3,20,21]. This index provides a single number as a measure of overall water quality at a specific location and time.…”

The hidden integration of Central Asia: the making of a region through technical infrastructures

“…Completed in 1970, the dam withdrew water for irrigation, leading to shrinkage of Lake Balkhash. The situation further worsened as China started withdrawing water from the Ili on its side of the border (water that was badly needed for agricultural and urban development in Xinjiang), creating new vulnerabilities for eastern Kazakhstan's water supply (Aladin and Plotnikov 1993;Nurtazin et al 2020).…”

Groundwater pollution and human health risk based on Monte Carlo simulation in a typical mining area in Northern Anhui Province, China

“…Groundwater is an important source of water for agricultural production and domestic uses, among others (Adimalla and Wu 2019), especially in areas lacking surface water. It is well known that groundwater is a vulnerable nature resource, and the mounting pressure on groundwater resources may result in a shortage of water resources coupled with their chemical contamination (Nurtazin et al 2020;Chen et al 2021). Once groundwater is contaminated, it severely disrupts the aquatic ecosystem's structure and functioning, such that reverting to its original state takes very a long time.…”