About the project
The project ‘Climate Change, Water Resources and Food Security’ (CCKAZ) began in April 2015 and will be completed in September 2017. This is a bilateral UK – Kazakhstan project, funded by Newton – al Farabi Fund (grant N 172722855), with four participating organisations: University of Reading (Reading, UK), Institute of Geography (Almaty, Kazakhstan), Nazarbayev University (Astana, Kazakhstan) and al-Farabi Kazakh National University (Almaty, Kazakhstan). The project is coordinated by Dr Maria Shahgedanova (University of Reading) and Professor Igor Severskiy (Institute of Geography).
The project employs multi-disciplinary approach and uses a variety of techniques (including state-of-the-art in situ measurements, remote sensing and modelling) to address the following research questions:
- How did hydrometeorological variables relevant to water availability and agricultural production change or vary in the recent past?
- How did the extent of glaciers, major suppliers of water in southern Kazakhstan, change in the 20th – 21st Centuries?
- How do changes in land surface parameters affect water balance and crop production?
- How will climate of Kazakhstan change in the future?
- What are the potential impacts of climate change on water availability and agricultural production?
- What adaptation strategies have been and can be developed and how can we improve resilience to the potential impacts of climate change on arable agriculture?
The project aimed to generate new knowledge which will be relevant to economic development and welfare of Kazakhstan, to establish close research collaboration between the researchers from the UK and Kazakhstan and to establish a hub for the collaborative international research in Kazakhstan.
Over 20 researchers participated in the project and a new hub for the UK – Kazakhstan research has been established at the Institute of Geography. We thank all those who helped us during the project and specifically National Hydrometeorological Service of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan State Agency "Kazselezashchita" (Mudflow Protection), Public Funds "Farmer of Kazakhstan", Public Fund "Water Partnership of Kazakhstan" and farmers. We will be grateful for your feedback, which you can send to the Institute of Geography (ingeo_2009@mail.ru) and hope that our finding will help you in your work.
We welcome further collaboration.
CCKAZ Team
Project website:
http://www.reading.ac.uk/geographyandenvironmentalscience/research/ges-MS-Kazakhstan.aspx
