Diversity of geological, geomorphological, climatic, soil and vegetation conditions on the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan implies variety of landscapes. With increase of sun heat from the north to the south and reduction of precipitation there is a gradual change of natural zones: forest steppes, steppes, semi-deserts and deserts. Their latitude extent to thousands of kilometers in combination with variety of rocks of geological structures and differentiation of the lay of the ground causes formation in each of them of different landscapes. Thus, in the mountain systems of the south and east of the country structure of landscapes depends on vertical zones.

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Air temperature decreases upwards, precipitation increases and respectively in this direction there are mountain steppe, forest and meadow, subalpine, alpine and snow and glacier zones. Republic of Kazakhstan is located deep inside Eurasia continent, and a distance to the world ocean is accounted in many hundreds of kilometres.On the territory of the country there is the so-called “world pole” of distance from the oceans. This point is located not far from the Almaty-city in the mountains of Trans-Ili Alatay, at a distance from any of the oceans, not less that 2500 km. Such inside-continental location of the territory of Kazakhstan is resulted in continental climate, characterised with hot summer and cold winter. Continental climate is characterised not only with hot summer and cold winter, but also with low precipitation. On the territory of the country there are the driest regions found in the CIS countries: in some desert areas in the south the average annual precipitation is not above 100 mm. On the slopes of Altai and Trans-Ili Alatau mountains precipitation is accounted to be the same as on the shore of the Baltic Sea (700-800 mm), and near perpetual snows it is above 1000 mm, in some years even 1500 mm. But such humid places in the country are but few. For the most part of the territory of Kazakhstan, especially southern plains, it is typical to have low precipitation.
Very many summer days are accounted in the country, more than on the southern shore of Crimea and Black Sea shore in Caucasus. Average temperature of January, the coldest month, ranges form –5⁰ C in the southernmost areas to –20⁰C in the north. On the plain part of Kazakhstan average July temperature ranges from +18⁰C in the north to +29⁰C in the south.
In the process of development of the National Environmental Action Plan for sustainable development of the Republic of Kazakhstan by territorial distribution of priority environmental problems and analysis of sections, to which sources of these problems can be referred, 3 provisional zones have been distinguished, climatic peculiarities of which determine the different course of bio-and geo-chemical processes.
Zone A – pre-Caspian, is represented by oblasts, specialized in oil production and processing. A priority problem here is respectively being oil pollution of environment.
Zone B – eastern, is one of the highly developed regions of the Republic of Kazakhstan with concentration of large enterprises of non-ferrous and ferrous metallurgy, energy sector. Here are prevailing problems related to environment pollution by industrial solid waste, air pollution in urban areas, lack of forests and especially protected natural territories.
Zone C – southern, is characterized, mainly, by agricultural specialization of the region, requiring sustainable water supply.
In the southern areas there is a significant lack of water resources. There are also problems related to water pollution by wastewaters and degradation of pastures.

Sector Base of Zones of Priority Environmental Problems
Description of climatic conditions in compliance with these zones is given below to allow to more efficiently use this information for making management decisions. Analysis of temperature within a year shows, that maximum average monthly temperature is accounted in July and is being from 20⁰C in the east to 25⁰C in the south and west of Kazakhstan. The lowest average air temperature is observed in the east of Kazakhstan and is being -17⁰C in January. In zones A and C minimum temperature is higher and ranges between –10⁰C and –6,5⁰C respectively.
Within a year in zone C precipitation is from 10 mm in August to 60 mm in April. In zones A and B maximum precipitation is observed during summer period, but in the east precipitation is twice more, than in the west (48 and 22 mm respectively). Minimum precipitation in zone B is accounted at the end of winter and in zone A – at the beginning of autumn.
Analysis of average values of air temperature anomalies in the three distinguished zones of Kazakhstan during 1894-1995, obtained in the result of average estimations for every five years, shows a trend of increase of temperature in all analysed zones by approximately 0.8-1.4 ⁰C .
Certain stabilization of temperature trends prove hypothesis of global temperature increase.
The annual average monthly temperature curve for high mountain stations has its own peculiarities:

• short period of positive temperatures, limited to five months (May – September);
• lower amplitude as compared with plain stations.