Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Sustainable development and creeping environmental problems in the Aral Sea region
- 2 Ecological disaster linked to landscape composition changes in the Aral Sea basin
- 3 Alteration of water level and salinity of the Aral Sea
- 4 Desertification in the Aral Sea region
- 5 Climate fluctuations and change in the Aral Sea basin within the last 50 years
- 6 Priaralye ecosystems and creeping environmental changes in the Aral Sea
- 7 Public health in the Aral Sea coastal region and the dynamics of changes in the ecological situation
- 8 The impact of political ideology on creeping environmental changes in the Aral Sea basin
- 9 Change of the rivers' flow in the Aral Sea basin (in connection with the problem of quantitative assessment and consideration of environmental after-effects)
- 10 Fish population as an ecosystem component and economic object in the Aral Sea basin
- 11 Creeping environmental changes in the Karakum Canal's zone of impact
- 12 Environmental changes in the Uzbek part of the Aral Sea basin
- 13 Creeping changes in biological communities in the Aral Sea
- Index
2 - Ecological disaster linked to landscape composition changes in the Aral Sea basin
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Sustainable development and creeping environmental problems in the Aral Sea region
- 2 Ecological disaster linked to landscape composition changes in the Aral Sea basin
- 3 Alteration of water level and salinity of the Aral Sea
- 4 Desertification in the Aral Sea region
- 5 Climate fluctuations and change in the Aral Sea basin within the last 50 years
- 6 Priaralye ecosystems and creeping environmental changes in the Aral Sea
- 7 Public health in the Aral Sea coastal region and the dynamics of changes in the ecological situation
- 8 The impact of political ideology on creeping environmental changes in the Aral Sea basin
- 9 Change of the rivers' flow in the Aral Sea basin (in connection with the problem of quantitative assessment and consideration of environmental after-effects)
- 10 Fish population as an ecosystem component and economic object in the Aral Sea basin
- 11 Creeping environmental changes in the Karakum Canal's zone of impact
- 12 Environmental changes in the Uzbek part of the Aral Sea basin
- 13 Creeping changes in biological communities in the Aral Sea
- Index
Summary
The first time I managed to see the Aral Sea and the Amudarya was in 1952, when large-scale studies on the northern route of the proposed but never developed Main Turkmen Canal were being developed. The Amudarya's delta with its blue- and green-colored lakes and vegetation contrasted sharply with the grayish, yellow-green desert areas of the Kynyadar' inskaya ancient alluvial deltaic plain and the saline soils (e.g.,solonchaks) of the Sarykamysh depression. Nothing noticeable was taking place in the natural environment at that time that warned us of the adverse environmental changes that would be observed after 1961.
In fact, I had noticed the first alarming symptoms of irrational use of water and of the adverse changes in the vegetational mix of desert landscapes even earlier, in 1958, while carrying out field studies of the Karabil'skaya fresh water lens in the southeastern part of the Karakum Desert. At that time the depressions between the ridges in the desert sands were beginning to flood as a result of the discharge of Amudarya water into the Karakum Canal which was then under construction. My concern about these environmental changes intensified in 1963–64, when I observed the filling of the Sarykamysh depression with waste water released through the Daryalyk channel. An eyewitness (Dr G.S. Kalenov) confirmed that, during the first year of water discharge into the Sarykamysh depression, the water disappeared into and filled with a rumble numerous underground karst cavities. Only after those underground cavities were filled did Lake Sarykamysh begin to appear in the Sarykamysh depression.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999