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ANTHROPOGENIC FACTORS AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON FORMATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF GROUNDWATER WITHIN THE PLATFORM DEN-UDATION PLAINS OF THE ARID ZONE OF KAZAKHSTAN (CENTRAL KAZAKHSTAN)

L.M. Kazanbayeva

Abstract

The problem of negative anthropogenic impact on formation, distribution and usage of groundwater within the platform denudation plains of the arid zone of Central Kazakhstan is quite relevant. This region faces an extreme environmental pressure, and at the moment is undergoing a strong anthropogenic effect. High rates of exploration of mineral, energy and agricultural resources resulted in creation of towns and large industrial agglomera-tions (Karaganda, Zhezkazgan, Balkhash) and a big number of villages (Aksuat, Konyrat, Satpayev, Kayrauty, Zhezdy, Topar, etc). On significant areas of the land of Central Ka-zakhstan, a significant transformation of the components of the natural environment takes place: natural relief and relief-forming processes, land cover, water and air, and geosys-tems as a whole. Simultaneously with hydrogeological conditions: nutrition, underground drainage, the thermal, gas, and geochemical regimes of the upper part of the lithosphere change. Springs disappear, rivers become shallow and many other processes develop. The natural environment components of big territories of Central Kazakhstan are being trans-formed, including the natural terrain, terrain-forming processes, soil and vegetation, wa-ter, air, and geosystems in general. One of the objectives of the second stage of the re-search within the framework of the special-purpose program is to collect and analyze the groundwater information in the regions of Kazakhstan, taking into consideration fresh groundwater shortage and negative anthropogenic factors. Anthropogenic factors are a combination of various human influences on inanimate and living nature. As a result of human exposure, the climate, the surface topography, the chemical composition of the atmosphere change, species and natural ecosystems disappear, etc. However, the anthro-pogenic factor makes its own ?amendments? both to the regimes of water renewal and to the constant change in water quality. These ?amendments? are reduced to the transporta-tion of waste when most of the used river water is returned as wastewater. Consideration of these factors will help to develop necessary measures for prevention and decrease of negative impacts on the ecosystems, will create favorable conditions for groundwater formation and for significant decrease of negative environmental processes in Central Kazakhstan. Despite the long-term research experience of many scientists and specialists, the problem of transforming the quality of groundwater under conditions of increasing anthropogenic pressure is becoming increasingly relevant at the present time and will remain so for a long time until there are positive trends in solving this problem. In complex natural and man-made conditions, when both the quality of water directly in the underground part of the hydrosphere or through other components of the environment is simultaneously influenced by natural pollution factors, as well as anthropogenic in a wide range (industrial, agricultural, and even the consequences of man-made disasters), the assessment of the quality of groundwater acquires a specific character. In such cases, a comprehensive assessment of the transformation of groundwater quality is necessary, due to their complex interactions with other components of the environment under the influence of the total anthropogenic load. The main task is to develop a method for as-sessing the transformation of groundwater quality by a complex of factors. This task can be accomplished using indicators characterizing these factors and indices of sustainable development of the underground part of the hydrosphere. To obtain these indicators and indices, it is necessary to conduct a set of research methods, which, on the one hand, characterize the transformation processes of groundwater, including their forecast esti-mates, and, on the other hand, allow obtaining quantitative characteristics of indices in-dicating the degree of stability of the underground hydrosphere. negative anthropogenic influence.

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