Securing water resources is a complicated issue in Kazakhstan. Only 36% of Kazakhstan’s rural population has access to a centralized water supply and 57.3% use groundwater accessed by wells and boreholes. The groundwater quality must be monitored to minimize health risks. The aim of this project is to investigate the groundwater quality in the Zhambyl region of Kazakhstan. Groundwater depletion, pollution, waterlogging, and salinization are all widespread in Kazakhstan. Previously, 500 self-flowing and, within this project, 204 wells were investigated in southern Kazakhstan, the Zhambyl region. The field works and data processing was carried out in three phases: first, a fieldwork survey of existing water wells; the second phase, field work with more detailed hydrogeological investigations, including measurements of flow rates, pH, temperature, and electrical conductivity of water samples; the third phase, processing, and analysis of field data samples in chemical laboratories. Kazakhstan’s requirements for drinking water are much lower than the requirements in the EU. Less than 30% of Kazakhstan’s population has access to safe water and about 50% of the population consumes drinking water that does not meet international standards of salinity, hardness, or bacteriological levels.

Sustainable potable groundwater supply is crucial for human development and the preservation of natural habitats. The largest endorheic inland lake in Kazakhstan, Balkhash Lake, is the main water resource for the arid southeastern part of the country. Several ore enrichment plants that are located along its shore have heavy metal pollution potential. The study area is located around a plant that has an evident anthropogenic impact on the Balkhash Lake aquatic ecological system, with ten known heavy metal toxic hotspots endangering fragile habitats, including some indigenous human communities. This study assessed the risk of heavy metal contamination from tailing dump operations, storage ponds, and related facilities and suggested management practices for preventing this risk. The coastal zone risk assessment analysis used an innovative integrated groundwater numerical flow and transport model that predicted the spread of groundwater contamination from tailing dump operations under several mitigation strategies. Heavy metal pollution prevention models included a no-action scenario, a filtration barrier construction scenario, and two scenarios involving the drilling of drainage wells between the pollution sources and the lake. The scenario assessment indicates that drilling ten drainage wells down to the bedrock between the existing drainage channel and the lake is the optimal engineering solution for confining pollution. Under these conditions, pollution from tailings will not reach Lake Balkhash during the forecast period. The methods and tools used in this study to enable mining activity without environmental implications for the region can be applied to sites with similar anthropogenic influences worldwide.

Mathematical simulation techniques have been used to study the subsurface water-lake system. The volume of the subsurface drain from the Syrdarya artesian basin (Kazakhstan) into the Aral Sea depression was computed subject to the geoinformation-mathematical model of its hydrogeological conditions. Since the surface and subsurface (underground) water are interconnected, their movement has been measured during the undisturbed period (1960), the epignostic (1961–2014) period, and for forecasting problems for 2044 under two water withdrawal options. The first forecast option assumes the same withdrawal volume of subsurface water level which existed at the end of 2014. The second forecast option envisages the model assignment (from the start of 2015) of the water withdrawal in the production volumes of the subsurface water approved by the National Reserves Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The simulation results showed that the technogenic factors in the explored area have a significant impact on the movement of the subsurface and surface water. Reduction of the Syrdarya and Amudarya rivers flows, production of subsurface water with multiple water-intake and unowned self-flowing wellbores promoted the desiccation of the Aral Sea. The proposed mathematical simulation technique used to assess the subsurface drain proved its efficiency and can be used for surveying the similar subsurface water-lake systems.

Mathematical modeling of the impact of irrigated rice fields on hydrogeological conditions of Southern Kazakhstan is studied in this paper.

Arid regions in Central Asia face persistent and increasing water scarcity, with groundwater serving as the primary source for drinking water, irrigation, and industry. The effective exploration and management of groundwater resources are critical, but are constrained by limited monitoring infrastructure and complex hydrogeological settings. This study investigates the Akbakay aquifer, a representative area within Central Asia with challenging hydrogeological conditions, to delineate potential zones for fresh groundwater exploration. A multi-criteria decision analysis was conducted by integrating the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), supported by remote sensing datasets. To address the subjectivity of weight assignment, the AHP results were further validated using Monte Carlo simulations and fuzzy logic aggregation (Fuzzy Gamma). The integrated approach revealed stable high-suitability groundwater zones that consistently stand out across deterministic, probabilistic, and fuzzy assessments, thereby improving the reliability of the groundwater potential mapping. The findings demonstrate the applicability of combined AHP–GIS methods enhanced with uncertainty analysis for sustainable groundwater resource management in data-scarce arid regions of Central Asia.