Yapiyev, Vadim2024-08-212024-08-212019Yapiyev, V. (2019). Evaporation And Water Balance Of Small Endorheic Lakes In Semi-Arid Northern Kazakhstan. Nazarbayev University School of Engineering and Digital Scienceshttps://nur.nu.edu.kz/handle/123456789/8233Approximately two thirds of global precipitation falling over continental surfaces is reverted to the atmosphere by terrestrial evaporation. Over the terrestrial surfaces, the difference between Precipitation-Evaporation (P-E) is stored as soil- surface- and groundwater and contributes to surface and sub-surface runoff that ultimately returns water back to the ocean by stream and groundwater flow. Chapter 1 sketches the global water cycle and underlines a relative importance of evaporation in endorheic basins. Endorheic basins (i.e., land-locked drainage networks) and their lakes can be highly sensitive to variations in climate and adverse anthropogenic activities, such as overexploitation of water resources. Chapter 2 provides a brief overview of one major endorheic basin on each continent, plus a number of endorheic basins in Central Asia (CA), a region where a large proportion of the land area is within this type of basin. In CA a substantial increase in irrigated agriculture coupled with negative climate change impacts have disrupted the fragile water balance for many endorheic basins and their lakes. Transboundary integrated land and water management approaches must be developed to facilitate adequate climate change adaptation and possible mitigation of the adverse anthropogenic influence on endorheic basins. Subsequently, the focus shifts to the endorheic lakes within Burabay National Nature Park (BNNP), Northern Kazakhstan (the main focus of this thesis). These endorheic lakes have been drying out during the last one hundred years or so with a public perception that the water level decrease accelerated in the past few decades.enAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United StatesType of access: GatedPhD thesis