Degree of Master of

Research aim

The overarching goal of the present research is to identify which of the elaborated water management scenarios is the most probable in terms of the future development of the Aydar- Arnasay lakes system.

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The future development of the lakes system implies such important aspects as features of hydrological regime, including level of mineralization; maintenance of fisheries situated in these lakes, conservation of biodiversity, i.e. wetlands of international importance designated as a Ramsar site and various birds and fish species inhabiting these lakes, and recreation.
Besides, the future of these lakes directly depends on two factors: on the one hand, level of cooperation between Central Asian republics, basically, future relationships between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan will define the policy of the water discharges from the Chardara reservoir located in South Kazakhstan; Kyrgyzstan in its turn will also have an influence on the Aydar-Arnasay lakes system in terms of the power-generation of the Toktogul Reservoir which releases a huge amount of water downstream during the winter time.

3. Research objectives

The following objectives were pursued in order to achieve the main goal:

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  To describe the overall review of the Aydar-Arnasay lakes system (AALS), including preconditions of the lakes’ formation, hydrological research conducted, current ecological conditions, and evolution of fish farming (Chapter 2);
  
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  To analyze contemporary ICT as a tool for assisting environmental science and consider the successful worldwide examples and best practices of ICT application (Chapter 2);
  
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  To analyze practical use of methods such as environmental modeling, scenario approach and remote sensing for data analysis (Chapter 2);
  
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  To identify the main scientific methods for data collection and analysis which can contribute to the goal achievement (Chapter 3);
  
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  To examine the past of the Aydar-Arnasay lakes system in terms of historical stages of the lakes’ formation and change dynamics of the AALS water level and volume (Chapter 4);
  
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  To examine the present development of the Aydar-Arnasay lakes from the socio- economic and environmental aspects (Chapter 5);
  
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  To elaborate possible water management for the analyzing future development trends of the Aydar-Arnasay lakes (Chapter 6);
  
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  To create the model of the Aydar-Arnasay lakes system for testing the elaborated scenarios using STELLA software (Chapter 6);
  
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  To simulate model for each water management scenario (Chapter 6);
  
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  To interpret the results obtained from the model simulation for achieving the main goal (Chapter 7).
  

3.