Zerafshan
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Serafshan Матча, Seravshan |
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 Serafshan Valley in Tajikistan |
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| Data | ||
| location | Tajikistan , Uzbekistan | |
| River system | Zerafshan | |
| origin |
Serafschangletscher 39 ° 30 ′ 0 ″ N , 70 ° 35 ′ 0 ″ E |
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| Source height | approx. 2750 m | |
| Infiltration | Karaköl (Karagöl) salt marsh on the border between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan Coordinates: 39 ° 24 ′ 56 ″ N , 63 ° 31 ′ 39 ″ E 39 ° 24 ′ 56 ″ N , 63 ° 31 ′ 39 ″ E
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| length | 877 km (according to other sources: 781 km) | |
| Catchment area | 17,700 km² | |
| Drain |
MQ |
174 m³ / s |
| Left tributaries | Fandarja , Kshtut , Magijandarja | |
| Reservoirs flowed through | Pervomai, Akdarin, Damkhodzhin, Narpai, Karmarin, Shafrikan, Kharkhur, Babkent, Tudakul , Kuyumazar, Shurkul | |
| Big cities | Samarkand | |
| Medium-sized cities | Punjakent | |
| Small towns | Khatyrtchi | |
 Course of the Zerafshan |
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The Serafshan ( Tajik Зарафшон , Sarafshon; Uzbek Zarafshon ; German also Seravshan from Russian Зеравшан , Serafshan; Anglicized Zeravshan; in the upper reaches also Матча , Mattscha ) is a river in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan . The name of the river is of Persian origin and means "gold donor".
It rises in Tajikistan at 2750 m above sea level on the Serafshan Glacier at the interface between the Serafshan and Turkestan chains . The river is 781 km long and the catchment area is 4000 km², according to other sources 877 km and 17,700 km². According to other information, the river is 644 (Brockhaus 1911) or 886 km (Meyers Konversationslexikon 5th edition) long. At its source the river is called Mostchokh-Darja . Only further downstream does the name change to Serafshan , after it has taken in several tributaries.
The river covers the first 300 km in Tajikistan. It flows between the steeply sloping Turkestan chain in the north and the Serafshan chain in the south to Punjakent to the west in a narrow valley that begins to widen from Firman Tepa . Then he enters the Serafshantal, which is in the Samarkand region in Uzbekistan. There it assumes a north-westerly direction and is artificially divided into two arms by a dam for irrigation east of Samarkand in the Miankal valley near the Choponaiy mountains , the Akdarja (“White River”) and Karadarja (“Black River”), which are located near Chatyrtschi (Yangirabad) reunite.
In total, the Serafshan has 70 tributaries. Some of them sometimes fail to reach it due to a lack of water. The Serafshan is connected to the Amu Darya with an irrigation canal. The river seeps away 20 km before the connection with the Amu Darya southwest of Bukhara in the desert in the salt marsh Karaköl (Karagöl) without having reached the Amu Darya .
At the entry point from Tajikistan to Uzbekistan, the annual runoff is 5.3 km³ (billion m³). Further downstream, the runoff only increases to 5.5 km³. Tajikistan currently only consumes 0.3 km³, i.e. approx. 6–8% of the runoff. The rest of the water is used in Uzbekistan.
On Serafshan there are a number of dams and reservoirs : Pervomai, Akdarin, Damkhodzhin, Narpai, Karmarin, Shafrikan, Kharkhur, Babkent, and many large and medium-sized channels for irrigation and water supply. In the middle reaches the reservoirs Tudakul (17,500 or 22,000 ha), Kuyumazar (1,600 ha) and Shurkul (1,600 ha). There are also several reservoirs that contain very salty water. Four lakes receive drainage water from canals: Dengizkul (25,000 ha), Karakyr (12,000 ha), Tuzgan (5700 ha) and Shurgak (1,600 ha). In the regions of Samarkand and Navoiy , the water is used to irrigate 530,000 hectares of land, on which mainly agricultural products are grown, which serve the needs of the rapidly growing rural population. As early as 1900, 126 canals irrigated 7143 km² (according to Meyer).
Water quality has deteriorated due to the influence of the water flowing back from irrigation and sewage from cities such as Samarkand, Kattakurgan and Navoiy. The salinity increases from 0.27 g / l at its source to 2.4 g / l at its mouth. The river below the cities of Kattakurgan and Navoiy is most polluted.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Article Serafshan in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (BSE) , 3rd edition 1969–1978 (Russian)