Candidate of Agricultural Sciences, Researcher in FSC of agroecology

RAS, Prospekt Universitetskij, 97, 400062 Volgograd, Russian Federation; Associate Professor of     Department of Geography and Cartography, Volgograd State University, 

Prospekt Universitetskij, 100, 400062 Volgograd, Russian Federation, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Candidate of Geographical Sciences, Head of Department of Geography and Cartography, Volgograd State University, 

Prospekt Universitetskij, 100, 400062 Volgograd, Russian

Federation

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Doctor of geography, Professor, Head of Department of Geography,

Land management and Cadastre, Al-Farabi Kazakh National  University, 

Prospekt al-Farabi, 71, 050040 Almaty, Kazakhstan, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Candidate of Biological Sciences, Associate Professor of Department of Ecology and Environmental management, Volgograd State University, 

Prospekt Universitetskij, 100, 400062     Volgograd, Russian Federation, 

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

---

Abstract. The article presents the possible ways of using geoinformation technologies for environmental management in the Syr Darya basin (one of the most important Central Asian river). The ecological and economic role of this river increased when the North Aral Sea was split from the Big Aral one by the Kokaral dam. It is necessary to regulate water consumption by all the countries of the basin – Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan republics. Based on the statistics data of CAWater-IS (the “Regional Information System on the Use of Water and Land Resources in the Aral Sea Basin”) some thematic layers for the geoinformation system of the Syr Darya basin have been developed. Attributive information contains data about the structure of land use in different administrative units of the republics of the basin – the share and areas of irrigated land, the amounts of water abstraction for various needs, landscape differentiation into types and subtypes of landscapes, the area of saline lands and the degree of salinity, areas under different crops and etc. The main consumer of water in the basin above the Shar Darya reservoir is Uzbekistan (up to 80 %), the largest areas of saline lands are located in Kazakhstan, and the main cultivated crops are cotton and cereals.

Key words: Syr Darya, the Aral Sea, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, GIS.