Chu Irrigation Canal System
The Chu Irrigation Canal System is the network of irrigation canals in the lower Chu River Basin, in the Chu District of the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ). It serves more than 80,000 hectares through about 1,200 kilometers of main and secondary canals and is operated by the Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate from Nurzhan.[1]
Most of the network was built between the 1930s and the 1970s to irrigate collective and state farms. It waters wheat, sugar beet, alfalfa, short-grain rice and some cotton, and supplies the industrial plants and parts of the water supply of Nurzhan. Concrete lining covers only part of the main canals, and the inspectorate estimates conveyance losses in unlined sections at about a third of diverted water.[1] Because the Chu rises in Kyrgyzstan and is drawn on heavily in the Chuy valley upstream, deliveries in July and August depend on releases from the Orto-Sai Reservoir and on upstream use, and shortages are frequent in dry years.[2]
See also
References
- ^ Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate (2023). Annual Report on Water Allocation, 2022. Nurzhan.
- ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Water Without Recognition: The Chu and Talas Basins and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 28, Iss. 1, pp. 33–58.