Geoecological Problems of Uzbekistan

Nariman Mavlyanov

Institute of Hydrogeology and Engineering Geology, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
e-mail: nariman_m2004@mail.ru

Abstract

In Uzbekistan is formed about 10 % of river drain volume, 90 % charged from snows of high transboundary territories. General water consumption in the Republic equals to 60 km². Total need for underground waters on domestic purposes achieved 3,43 km³, technical water supply - 0,74 km³, irrigation - 3,2 km³, drainage - 2,5 km³. Annually, in the Republic dumped about 300 million m³ of polluted waters and to atmosphere about 4 million tons of polluting substances. There formed more than 100 million tons of different pollutants, half of which are toxic.

For the last ten years in the Republic, ground waters of 54 well fields became polluted and unsuitable for drinking purposes. In the result of exhaustion, the exploitation stocks of fresh underground waters of domestic-drinking supply reduced up to 1879,0 thousand m³ / day that equals to 18 % of maintained amount. The volume of regional resources of ground waters with the mineralization up to 1 g / l, as a result of exhaustion, reduced up to 15,8 million m³ / day that equals to 7 % from their total amount. Water logging appears to be one of the important problems of cities and city agglomerations. It causes sufficient trouble to the economy, demanding significant expends for the organization of engineering protection.

In the beginning of 1980’s, practically stopped the flow of water to Aral Sea from rivers Sir-Darya and Amu Darya. From 1985, the reduction of water level in it exceeds 80 cm per year. About 23 thousand km² of sea bottom is bared. As a result of wind erosion, to the atmosphere is taken out up to 75 million tons of dust per year, on a surface of ground drops out more than 500 kg/he of dust - salt components. Emission of dust occurs on the distance of more than 400 km.
As a result of desertification of lands near Aral, more than 2 million hectares of lands are driven out. The process of desertification grasped the recent delta of Amu-Darya River. The areas of salted lands, for the last 5 years, increased here 2 times and made about 6 thousand km², from which 1,7 thousand km² – over salted. The reduction of water inflow in the delta resulted in the drying of numerous lakes.