Kazhydromet has announced that artificial precipitation enhancement has begun in the Turkistan region. The pilot project was launched there to assess its effectiveness and potential for agricultural areas. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
"The preparatory phase of the project included research work analyzing data from 39 meteorological stations for 2020–2024. Based on a comprehensive study of atmospheric processes and terrain features, the Turkistan region was identified as the most promising pilot territory," specialists said.
Kazhydromet emphasized that the technology is applied exclusively to naturally formed cumulonimbus clouds with vertical development. The impact is local and short-term, does not affect climatic processes, and does not alter air mass movement.
Kazhydromet provides scientific and meteorological support for the project: round-the-clock atmospheric monitoring, analysis of satellite images and synoptic data, observation of cloud systems, and assessment of actual precipitation amounts.
Earlier, Kursiv reported that in mid-May, the project for artificial rainmaking was officially launched in the Turkistan region to increase reservoir levels and provide water for agricultural areas in southern Kazakhstan. Vice Minister of Ecology Mansur Oshurbaev told reporters in the parliament that the technology had already been tested.
According to him, the experiments are supervised by Kazhydromet.
Full-scale implementation of the technology began on May 17, 2026. The project covers 911,000 hectares of arable land in the Turkistan region. The innovation is being implemented jointly with the National Center of Meteorology of the UAE.
Salt reagents are used for the operations, and the potential economic effect is estimated at up to 35 billion tenge per year.