Investigation of Different Water-Related Innovation Aspects within the Past Three Decades: A Case Study of Kazakhstan and Neighboring Countries

The advancement of water sustainability and reliance is highly dependent on the innovative ideas implemented in the sector. However, despite water being a vital resource, the water sector still faces many challenges in terms of innovations in comparison to other sectors. This study investigated different aspects of innovation activities in the water sector in the case of Kazakhstan and neighboring countries. The potential water-related issues calling for more innovation activities in the field are also expounded. Moreover, the potential effect of the COVID-19 global pandemic is also highlighted, based on a questionnaire survey conducted among different water-related firms. The innovation datasets were divided into three different decades to investigate the potential influence of a 10-year period on the characteristics of the innovation activities in the water sector; whereby, a p-value of approximately 0.014 was retrieved from the analysis of variance (less than the significance threshold of 0.05). As a result of our findings, it can be stated that there were statistically significant differences in terms of innovation during the three decades investigated in this study. Moreover, a relatively high correlation was observed between wastewater handling tariffs and the number of patented innovations, with a correlation coefficient of 0.868; however, there was a weak correlation between water supply tariffs and patented innovations, with a correlation coefficient of 0.333. Based on the questionnaire survey, it was observed that the innovation disruption caused by COVID-19 in terms of the motivation in water-related innovations has impacted more of the large-scale water firms than the small-scale firms. Therefore, the results derived in this study further reveal that there is a significant need to invest more towards innovation in the water sector, especially regarding large-scale firms.