Karakum Canal: Artificial River in a Desert
The idea to use the water of the Amudarya River for irrigation of the Karakum Desert was shaped in the eighteenth century and it was partially realized during the tsarist time in Russia. But only in the 1950s the Karakum Canal, the world’s major hydraulic
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Abstract The idea to use the water of the Amudarya River for irrigation of the Karakum Desert was shaped in the eighteenth century and it was partially realized during the tsarist time in Russia. But only in the 1950s the Karakum Canal, the world’s major hydraulic engineering project, was designed and constructed. After Turkmenistan became an independent state this canal was renamed Karakum River. The artificial Karakum River (“outflow” from the Amudarya by analogy with inflow) connected Amudarya, Murghab, and Tedzhen rivers into a single water system making the basis for economic development of the country. This artificial river permitted to extend the irrigated lands for growing cotton, fodder crops, vegetables, and melon crops; to create fishery farms; to water desert pastures and, accordingly, stimulate development of distant-range grazing of cattle; to develop shipping and use the waters of this river in industry and power engineering. Keywords Irrigation, Karakum Canal, Water resources
Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 2 History of the Karakum Canal Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 3 Description of the Karakum Canal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 4 Importance of the Karakum Canal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
I.S. Zonn (*) Engineering Research Production Center for Water Management, Land Reclamation and Ecology “Soyuzvodproject”, Baumanskaya Str. 43/1, Moscow 105005, Russia e-mail: [email protected] I.S. Zonn and A.G. Kostianoy (eds.), The Turkmen Lake Altyn Asyr and Water Resources in Turkmenistan, Hdb Env Chem (2014) 28: 95–106, DOI 10.1007/698_2012_194, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012, Published online: 5 September 2012
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1 Introduction Casting glance on the map of Turkmenistan you can easily see the disproportion in the geographic combination of the main natural factors: water and land are separated by the vast expanses of the Karakum sands. Water is represented by a powerful flow of the Amudarya River going over the northern boundary of the desert; large tracts of fertile lands occurring as sports along the mountain range of Kopetdag make the southern margins of the desert. Therefore, since old times the nature itself had suggested the giant task for this region – to repair the disturbed harmony, to connect water and land to form symbiosis that will provide for maximum use of productive forces, agriculture improvement and general development of economics in the republic. This ta
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