Sarykamysh Depression
The Sarykamysch - sink is in the southwest of the Aral Sea on the border between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan .
The flat area is part of the Ustyurt steppe and is just a few meters above sea level (Aral Sea +53 m, Caspian Sea -28 m), approximately 100 km from the side of the estuary of the Amu Darya into the Aral Sea. In the southern part of the valley there is a source of the Usboi , a river that occasionally originated there and was at times a tributary of the Amu Darya . Even the unrealized Turkmen Main Canal would have met the Usboi south of the depression coming from Taxiatosh and would have been built on its old river bed (cf. Karakum Canal # differentiation from the Turkmen Main Canal ).
As a result of ecologically ruthless irrigation projects by the Soviet Union in the 20th century, the poisonous-salty Sarykamysch Lake , about 10,000 km² in size, formed there, which - in contrast to the rapidly shrinking Aral Sea - continues to enlarge. (See also Usboi # Current environmental pollution in the Usboi catchment area )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Vladimir Kunin: Conqueror of the Desert. Brockhaus, Leipzig, 1957