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Sustainable Water Use in Industry—Reasons, Challenges, Response of Kazakhstan

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Abstract

Industrial development poses significant challenges to water resource management, both in terms of quality and quantity. In response to these challenges, the concept of sustainable water use has been proposed as a means of addressing these issues. However, this concept is not yet widely adopted in developing countries, particularly in Kazakhstan. This paper examines the extent to which water use is sustainable on the example of the oil refinery sector in Kazakhstan. The investigation revealed a two-fold problem: the discharge of contaminated wastewater into the environment, which poses a risk of contamination transport, and the irrational use of water within the refinery. These issues are rooted in low water fees, low penalties for pollution and the gaps in legislation that allow for high maximum allowable concentrations of pollutants in discharges. As a result, toxic contaminants, such as petroleum hydrocarbons, are present in high concentrations exceeding permissible limits in groundwater up to 6 km away from the point of wastewater discharge. Based on the findings of the environmental impact assessments carried out in the sector, the authors propose a response that involves revising and implementing suitable legislative standards with requirements for transparent practices for environmental impact assessment and new efficient environmental monitoring programs to prevent water pollution. These measures have been adopted in the new Ecological Code and require proper control to ensure their effective implementation. However, the perspective of implementing efficient water-saving techniques and water integration is not yet widely visible and needs to be considered in order to achieve the sustainable water use in the industry.

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Acknowledgements

The paper is dedicated to the memory of Prof. Dr-Habil Ing Jiří Jaromír Klemeš—the Head of Sustainable Process Integration Laboratory (SPIL)—who was the leading researcher in the area of process integration. He passed away in January 2023.

Funding

This research was funded by the Science Committee of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Grant No. AP14972725). Major outcomes of this paper come from a doctoral dissertation of Ivan Radelyuk titled ‘Towards sustainable water use in industry: a case study of the oil refinery industry in Kazakhstan’. The authors also acknowledged the funding and support by the EU project Sustainable Process Integration Laboratory (SPIL), funded as project no. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/15_003/0000456, by Czech Republic Operational Programme Research and Development, Education, Priority 1: Strengthening capacity for quality research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technologies, Toraighyrov University, Pavlodar, 140000, Kazakhstan

    Ivan Radelyuk

  2. Department of Water Resources Engineering, Lund University, Box 118, 22100, Lund, Sweden

    Ivan Radelyuk & Kamshat Tussupova

  3. Sustainable Process Integration Laboratory (SPIL), NETME CENTRE, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Brno University of Technology—VUT Brno, Technická, 2896/2, 616 69, Brno, Czech Republic

    Jiří Jaromír Klemeš

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  1. Ivan Radelyuk
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  2. Jiří Jaromír Klemeš
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  3. Kamshat Tussupova
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Contributions

Ivan Radelyuk: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, formal analysis, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. Jiří Jaromír Klemeš: conceptualization, supervision, writing—review and editing. Kamshat Tussupova: conceptualization, methodology, supervision, formal analysis, writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Ivan Radelyuk.

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Radelyuk, I., Klemeš, J.J. & Tussupova, K. Sustainable Water Use in Industry—Reasons, Challenges, Response of Kazakhstan. Circ.Econ.Sust. 3, 2267–2283 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-023-00269-y

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