Bol'shoy Taldykol'

Bolshoi Taldykol is the largest lake in the Taldykol system, a group of shallow steppe lakes — alongside Olmes, the Maly Taldykol lakes, and Tassuat — on the edge of Kazakhstan's capital, Astana. For generations, local communities used the lakes for fishing and small-scale farming and as a place to escape the summer heat, while the wetlands moderated the city's temperature and humidity and supported large bird populations, including several endangered species. From the 1970s the lake received treated wastewater from the growing city, a practice that ended completely in 2016. The cessation of discharge was followed by an extensive land-reclamation project that shrank the combined Taldykol wetlands from around 1,500 hectares to about 500 hectares within only a couple of years, a loss that drew strong public criticism and sparked a long-running campaign by residents and conservation groups to protect what remained. City authorities have since announced plans to restore part of the lost water area of Bolshoi Taldykol.