The primary natural factor driving desertification in Kazakhstan is its inland location, which results in an arid and dry climate, limited and unevenly distributed water resources. This, in turn, has led to the widespread presence of sandy areas (up to 30 million hectares) and salt marshes (127 million hectares). The area of agricultural land in Kazakhstan is 222.6 million hectares, of which 2.3 million hectares are irrigated. The share of saline soils is about 20% of the total area of all irrigated arable land. According to the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Land Resources Management, the area of saline lands is 94.9 million hectares (42.1%). Out of the 214,977 hectares of irrigated land in the Kyzylorda region, 62,343 hectares remain unused, including 729 hectares that are unsuitable for cultivation due to salinization. In the Aral Sea region, long-term rice cultivation has led to an increase in the groundwater level in the fields, and hot and dry climatic conditions contribute to the rapid evaporation of moisture from the soil layer, intensifying salinization processes, especially in areas with shallow saline mineral groundwater. In general, the agroecological condition of the irrigated lands of the Kyzylorda region is associated with the mineralization of collector and drainage runoff, which ranges from 2 to 5 g/l, and this trend has intensified over the past ten years, increasing by 60%. The humus content in the soils of the Kazakhstan Aral Sea region has decreased by 30-40% over the past 30 years and currently does not exceed 1%. Similar critical conditions in irrigated agriculture in the Aral Sea region led to a decrease in the gross yield of agricultural crops by 1.6-1.8 times.
Demesinova et al. (Wed,) studied this question.