Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation has confirmed that its National Water Resources Information System (NWIS) is now fully operational. Minister Nurzhan Nurzhigitov announced the milestone during a staff meeting on digitisation in the sector, describing the platform as a direct response to instructions issued by the head of state. The system was built by the ministry’s own Information and Analytical Centre for Water Resources, a non-profit joint stock company set up to work on water data and analysis.
The NWIS pulls together records on water bodies, water management infrastructure, water users and groundwater resources into a single database, intended to give officials a more reliable and current basis for decisions across the sector. So far, more than 23,000 water bodies have been logged, among them 17,758 rivers, 3,148 lakes and 1,207 hydraulic structures. Around 3,000 organisations and over 4,000 individual users have registered on the platform, which also holds close to 9,000 digital technical records covering water management and hydraulic facilities, standardised documentation of each structure’s capacity, condition and specifications, previously kept on paper.
The system has also absorbed more than 2,200 primary water accounting reports (records submitted directly by individual users on how much water they draw and how it is used), along with over 1,300 statistical form 2-TP returns, an annual reporting form that enterprises and organisations are required to file under Kazakhstan’s water reporting rules. Together, these give the platform ground level data to complement its inventory of rivers, lakes and hydraulic structures.
Forecasting and digital agreements
Nurzhigitov set out what the system is designed to do in practice. “The functionality of the National Water Resources Information System includes maintaining the water balance, accounting for and analyzing water use, monitoring the condition of reservoirs, working with data on transboundary water bodies, as well as space based monitoring,” he said, adding that the platform should enable “a comprehensive, multi level water resources management system for the sustainable development of the economy and ensuring the country’s water security.”
Alongside the NWIS, the ministry has launched a pilot Early Water Demand Forecasting System, which allows electronic agreements for water delivery through canals, together with online payments and automated calculations. Contracting with users follows now an electronic format, and more than 29,000 agreements have been signed with agricultural producers since the start of the year.
