METHODS OF COMPLEX ASSESSMENT OF NATURAL AND ANTHROPOGENIC PRESSURE FOR WATER RESOURCES IN CENTRAL ASIA - KARATAL RIVER CASE STUDY

Development of the national economy in the Karatal basin river is characterized by the progressive involvement and development of the resource potential of natural landscapes, the current rate of utilization of which greatly enhances the anthropogenic impact on the natural environment. A significant impact on the formation of the ecological environment of natural landscapes is provided by the rural and water sectors, as well as by industrial facilities related to processing and mining. At the same time, on the one hand the economic activity of the man in the catchment areas of the river basin gives a certain positive effect, and on the other hand, it is accompanied by an unavoidable set of negative ecological consequences that complicate ecological situations in various ranks of natural systems. Such negative natural and man-caused process in human activity occurs as a result of inadequate knowledge of the regularities of interaction between natural and anthropogenic factors, about the processes developing in the natural environment in complex watershed management, which is one of the obstacles on the way to the creation of ecologically sustainable cost-effective water catchment systems. Scientific interest to the assessment of the ecological state of the catchments of rivers and the problem of their complex development have been appeared relatively recently which is explained by the increase in modern conditions of anthropogenic load on the catchment areas, the need to assess the impact of such pressures on the ecological stability of catchments and the emergence of the problem of ensuring the sustainable function of catchments. The catena concept was developed to analyze the regular variability of soil on the slope. The example of this approach consists first in a structural component, the recurring pattern of certain soils in a landscape transects in which every chain element has its place in the chain, a soil has it in a landscape areal. The object of the research is the catchment basin of the Karatal river with a length of 390 km, an area of 19.1 thousand km(2), which is formed by the merger of three rivers called Tekeliaryk, Chadzha and Kora, sources which are at an altitude of 3200-3900 m. The initial 160 km is mountain character, from the Zhungarian Alatau and below the confluence of Kara and Chizhe River overlooks a wide intermountain plain. Other tributaries are Kara, Terekty, Laba, Balykty, Mokur and the most abundant is Koksu. After the confluence of the tributary of the Koksu River, Karatal flows through the sandy desert of the Southern Balkhash. At a distance of 40 km from the mouth, the river has a delta area of 860 km(2). According to long-term observations, the average annual discharge of the Karatal River in the Ushtobe section is 66.7 m(3)/s or 2.1 km(3)/year.