Akimat of Almaty named the causes of constant flooding

Akim of Almaty city has instructed to check out the technical state of city water facilities in order to prevent floods. The checkout results were announced during the press tour at ditch network of city commuters and ducts.

Specialists have identified 56 zones that flooded permanently after even a slightest rain. The main reasons were the absence of ditches, or the present ditches were not connected with sewage system, some were damaged, or led to the roads, messed up or filled up.

Due to the constant growth of the city and its population, the current system doesn’t cope with rain and melt water. We need to reconstruct the ditch system and increase their capacity and eventually unite them into one system.

The checkout demonstrated that only 4 out of 16 commuters for rain and melt waters built between 2013 – 2018 in Alatau district work properly. The other 12 are out of order, filled and messed up or aren’t connected with the ditch network at all.

An inventory of the city's ditch network was completed in March 2022 as instructed by akim. As a result, 1,525 km of canal networks were identified, of which 1,101 km are functioning, 424 km (27%) require repair or reconstruction, and it is also necessary to build new canal networks with a length of 100 km. Only 168 km of irrigation ditches are used now.

This year, work on construction and reconstruction of the ditch network with a total length of 376 km (western part in Alatau, Nauryzbay, Auezov districts, the central part in Zhetysu, Bostandyk, Almaly districts, the eastern part in Medeu, Turksib districts) will start.

Today, they are constructing and reconstructing canal networks with a length of 119 km at the western part of Almaty. The implementation period is between 2021-2023. At the same time, this project does not yet provide for irrigating green spaces, nor include the drainage of rain and melt water into existing collectors, which would lead to flooding of individual areas.

In this regard, the project has to be reviewed in order to reconstruct existing ditch networks and collectors with an increase in their capacity, and to connect all ditches to a single network without suspension of works. This will help avoid floods and water green spaces.