ASTANA — Kazakhstan is seeking to make water-sharing across Central Asia more transparent through real-time monitoring and shared data as it prepares for possible declines in water availability through 2040. The country does not currently face a nationwide water deficit, but its dependence on rivers flowing across national borders makes water security a regional issue, Water Resources and Irrigation Minister Nurzhan Nurzhigitov said in an interview with Tengrinews published on Oct.
27. Photo credit: Ministry of Water Resurces and Irrigation. Kazakhstan’s average annual river runoff is about 100 billion cubic meters, with approximately 45% of its river water coming from abroad. The economy, agriculture, industry and housing and utilities sectors collectively use about 25 billion cubic meters annually, according to the minister.
Water Resources and Irrigation Minister Nurzhan Nurzhigitov. Photo credit: Tengrinews.kz Seven of Kazakhstan’s eight river basins are connected to transboundary waters. The country receives water from the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, China and Russia.
The dependence is particularly pronounced in the south, where much of the country’s irrigated agriculture is concentrated. About 90% of the water supplied by the Syr Darya River to the Turkistan and Kyzylorda regions is transboundary. Approximately 75% of the water available to the Zhambyl Region from the Chu River comes from Kyrgyzstan.
“Water availability has become a strategic issue and a matter of national security,” Nurzhigitov said. One of Kazakhstan’s priorities is to improve the transparency and accuracy of information exchanged by countries that share river basins. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have agreed to automate water accounting at 10 sites along the Syr Darya, with five in each country.
The German Society for International Cooperation, or GIZ, helped prepare the project documentation. Kazakhstan has already built two hydrological monitoring stations using funds from the Turkistan regional administration. The minister said the two countries had jointly checked the stations and could now see the same data in real time.
In January 2026, Kazakhstan proposed developing a plan to digitize the entire Syr Darya basin. Tajikistan agreed to participate, and a working group was established involving Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its first meeting was planned for early November, with Kyrgyzstan potentially joining the initiative later.
“If we digitize the entire basin, we will see how much water flows through it and how each country fulfills its obligations. This will increase trust. There will be no situation where one country says, ‘I sent this much water,’ while another claims it received nothing,” Nurzhigitov said.
The plan for automated water accounting across the Syr Darya basin has already been developed and sent to the countries concerned, according to a note accompanying the Tengrinews interview. However, the minister did not specify a timeline or cost for a fully integrated system.
The current initiative is narrower than a shared digital platform covering all five Central Asian countries. Its initial working group involves three countries, with Kyrgyzstan expected to be invited later. Kazakhstan is also developing its own water information infrastructure.