Tarim River
Map of the catchment area
The Tarim ( Uighur تارىم دەرياسى ( Tarim Däryasi ), Chinese塔里木河, Pinyin Tarim Hey, Mandarin Talimu He) is an approximately 2190 km long river in the west of the People 's Republic of China.
Course
This longest river in Central Asia created in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to the southeast of the city of Aksu by the confluence of the Aksu as the actual main river with the longer Yarkant and Kashgar; with strong water flow he takes also still coming from the south Hotan (650 km long) on. Then it flows through the Tarim Basin, the northern areas of the Taklamakan desert in the east. The Tarim ends in the eastern part of the Tarim Basin. The largest water management has the Tarim after emerging from the mountains, then it loses its water by evaporation, seepage and drainage in irrigation canals.
The catchment area of the Tarim comprises according to different details from 400.000 km ² and about 1 million km ². The irrigated from the Tarim area totaled 198,000 km ² in 2002.
Underflow to 1949
In its lower reaches, the Tarim shares as part of a bifurcation into two branches, the main part of the river runs to the southeast. If this branch of the river, especially after the snow melts, led enough water, it flowed in endorheic wetland Kara Kul Buran. If he was not fading before, led the smaller and leading to the east branch of the river in endorheic lake Lop Nor.
Changes since 1949
The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, led since 1949 in the Tarim Basin and in Yanji Basin numerous irrigation projects. Only in the area of the Tarim and its tributaries rose irrigated arable land of 351 200 ha ( 1949) to 776 600 ha (1994); in the same period irrigation canals were built in a length of 1,088 km and 206 dams with a total capacity of 3 billion cubic meters of water for irrigation.
The Yarkant supplied the Tarim still in the 1950s annually with 1-1.5 billion cubic meters of water, but from 1979 he led in the lower reaches no more water; thus there 59% of the poplar stocks died off until 1993.
The excess water from the Bosten Lake, the previously dined especially the lake Lop Nor, is used for irrigation of about 100,000 ha of arable land in Yanji Basin since 1949; therefore led his discharge, the Konqi until 2000, only a little water and increased its underflow Kum- darya and the lower reaches of the Tarim no longer supply them with water. Since 1971-1972, the lake Lop Nor as well as its tributaries Konqi and Kum- darya have dried up. The Tarim ends since near Tikanlik in the Daxihaizi reservoir located there.
The lack of river water led to an ecological disaster: the death of riparian vegetation and native animals at the lake Lop Nor and the lower reaches of Tarim, to the lowering of the ground water, multiplying the sandstorms and the diseases caused by it, and to further spreading of the deserts of Lop Nor and Taklamakan.
Alluvial forests with the Euphrates poplar (Populus diversifolia ) of a total of 528 600 ha with a growing stock of 5.4 million cubic meters in 1958, declined until 1978 on an area of 280 500 ha with a wooden stock of 2.18 million m³. In the lower reaches, the decline was even close to 70%; the remainders were in 1994 to 80 % in the wilting stage. With the poplar groves and the Tarim Auenweiden were severely damaged an area of 133,000 ha in the lower reaches to 1994.
For ecological reasons, was launched in April 2000 several times water from the Bosten Lake on the Konqi in the Tarim and into the lake of Lop Nor. According to Chinese reports, the lake Lop Nor was renovated in 2004 in a size of 200 km ². Gradually, to the damage caused by the withdrawal of water from the Tarim, be mitigated by a number of measures.
According to a decision of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region from winter 2000/ 01 water to be diverted from the river Ili through a tunnel under the Tianshan Mountains to the Tarim River, so that the lake Lop Nor can re caused by water from the Ili. The project bears the name of diverting water from north to south.