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.

Climate change from anthropogenic activities had resulted in devastating disruptions in Kazakhstan. This includes drought in 2023 and flooding in 2024, with widespread water pollution. The field surveys and water-soil sampling were carried out in 2013 to study West Kazakhstan’s (WK) groundwater and soil. From this, preliminary classifications were made. The water was categorized into three groups: (1) potable household, (2) technical irrigation, and (3) unsuitable for use. WK is under intensive oil and gas exploration and processing activities, thus, groundwater in the region faces contamination risks. As a result, proper, permanent groundwater quality monitoring is needed. Along with these efforts, the groundwater and soil samples were collected and analyzed. This included measuring for different anions and cations concentration, hydrogen ions pH concentration, total dissolved salts (TDS), total water hardness С, sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), and sodium content (SC). The Piper and Durov Diagrams illustrate water-soil quality. The WK region was categorized into three groups by the water-soil quality outputs; the (1) group of the WK North-East region with the smallest salinity level, suitable for the household use; the (2) group of the WK South-East, suitable for irrigation, as technical water, which is unsuitable as the potable water and requires purifications for the household needs; the (3) group of the WK North-West, unsuitable for irrigation and high salt content, which requires substantial purification for the household or irrigation use. Among the salinity chemistry levels, the most common are chloride-sulfate, soda-sulfate, sulfate-soda by anions; next sodium and sodium-calcium by cations. Soda-saline lands were identified in some areas of the WK region. The upgrading of melioration for sufficient water quality improvement will require substantial efforts. The content of petroleum products in some soil samples significantly exceeds the maximum permissible concentration. A further, more detailed investigation is required with more permanent soil water monitoring efforts, especially following the recent flooding events.

Groundwater is the main source of water for drinking, household use, and irrigation in Kabul; however, the water table is dropping due to the excessive extraction over the past two decades. The groundwater restoration criteria selection mainly depends on the techniques used to recharge the aquifer. The design of infiltration basins, for example, requires different technical criteria than the installation of infiltration wells. The different set of parameters is relevant to water being infiltrated at the surface in comparison with water being injected into the aquifers. Restoration of the groundwater resources are complicated and expensive tasks. An inexpensive preliminary investigation of the potential recharge areas, especially in developing countries such as Afghanistan with its complex Upper Indus River Basin, can be reasonably explored. The present research aims to identify the potential recharge sites through employing GIS and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and combining remote sensing information with in situ and geospatial data obtained from related organizations in Afghanistan. These data sets were employed to document nine thematic layers which include slope, drainage density, rainfall, distance to fault, distance to river channel, lithology, and ground water table, land cover, and soil texture. All of the thematic layers were allocated and ranked, based on previous studies, and field surveys and extensive questionnaire surveys carried out with Afghan experts. Based on the collected and processed data output, the groundwater recharge values were determined. These recharge values were grouped into four classes assessing the suitability for recharge as very high (100%), high (63%), moderate (26%), and low (10%). The relative importance of the various geospatial layers was identified and shows that slope (19.2%) is the most important, and faults (3.8%) the least important. The selection of climatic characteristics and geological characteristics as the most important criteria in the artificial recharge of the aquifer are investigated in many regions with good access to data and opportunities for validation and verifications. However, in regions with limited data due to the complexities in collecting data in Afghanistan, proper researching with sufficient data is a challenge. The novelty of this research is the cross-disciplinary approach with incorporation of a compiled set of input data with the set of various criteria (nine criteria based on which layers are formed, including slope, drainage density, rainfall, distance to fault, distance to river channel, lithology, ground water table, land cover, and soil texture) and experts’ questionnaires. The AHP methodology expanded with the cross-disciplinary approach by adding the local experts´ questionnaires survey can be very handy in areas with limited access to data, to provide the preliminary investigations, and reduce expenses on the localized expensive and often dangerous field works.

Сегодняшняя глобальная стратегия по повышению надежности систем хозяйственно-питьевого водоснабжения определяется нацеленностью на максимальное использование подземных вод для обеспечения населения питьевой водой. В большинстве случаев информация о наличии, объеме и качестве подземных вод играет решающую роль при принятии решений об эффективности освоения определенной территории, а также об улучшении и расширении физической среды и объектов, необходимых для поддержания экономической деятельности и обеспечения жизненных потребностей людей данного региона. Поэтому решающим фактором в изучении гидрогеологических условий региона являются знания о распространении подземных вод, величине их ресурсов, качестве и особенностях их формирования. Выполнена оценка ресурсного потенциала подземных вод Западного Казахстана для обеспечения устойчивого питьевого водоснабжения населения. При оценке характеристик пресных подземных вод применены гидрогеологические, гидрогеохимические, геоинформационно-аналитические, статистические и лабораторные методы исследований (в том числе хроматографический, спектрофотометрический, атомноабсорбционный и др.). Оценка ресурсного потенциала пресных подземных вод и перспектив их использования для водоснабжения городов и населенных пунктов позволит выявить высоко-, средне- и малообеспеченные подземными водами территории, а это, в свою очередь, даст возможность найти новые источники для покрытия нужд хозяйственно-питьевого водоснабжения, что будет способствовать устойчивому социально-экономическому развитию Западного Казахстана.