{"id":20042251,"date":"2020-11-12T12:30:17","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T07:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thethirdpole.net\/?p=42251"},"modified":"2021-03-08T23:26:59","modified_gmt":"2021-03-08T17:56:59","slug":"turkmenistan-fails-to-create-vast-lake-in-karakum-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/turkmenistan-fails-to-create-vast-lake-in-karakum-desert\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkmenistan fails to create vast lake in Karakum desert"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In post-Soviet Turkmenistan, a passion for large scale and \u2018great socialist construction projects\u2019 has persisted. The largest of these, in both labour and financial terms, is the Golden Age Lake in the middle of the Karakum desert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1999, President Saparmurat&nbsp;Niyazov <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/review\/turkmen_lake_2.htm\">announced<\/a> the decision to build the lake at a cost of USD 4.5 billion \u2013 which later grew to USD 6 billion.<br>The project aims to pump water along a network of canals into the Karashor depression, in the northern Karakum desert. The northern canal will divert water from Turkmenistan\u2019s Dashoguz region and Uzbekistan, while the southern canal will divert drainage water from the Ahal, Mary and Lebap regions of Turkmenistan. Though the project was originally conceived in the 1970s, Niyazov \u2013 also known as Turkmenbashi (\u2018father of the Turkmens\u2019) \u2013 attributed it to himself. Niyazov ruled the country from 1991, when it gained independence, until he died in 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<a class=\"wp-block-cd-related-news alignright block--related-news loading\" data-post-id=\"20049130\"><div class=\"block--related-news__image\"><\/div><div class=\"block--related-news__content\"><span class=\"block--related-news__heading\">Recommended<\/span><span class=\"block--related-news__title\"><\/span><\/div><\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<a class=\"wp-block-cd-related-news block--related-news loading\" data-post-id=\"20037052\"><div class=\"block--related-news__image\"><\/div><div class=\"block--related-news__content\"><span class=\"block--related-news__heading\">Recommended<\/span><span class=\"block--related-news__title\"><\/span><\/div><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>His successor <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gurbanguly_Berdimuhamedow\">Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov<\/a> oversaw the completion of the first stage of the project in 2009, ignoring warnings from experts that most of the water channelled into the lake would be lost through evaporation in this arid region. Ten years on, the artificial lake lies almost empty. Meanwhile, existing local water infrastructure has been neglected, leaving the farmers struggling to grow crops on their land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-cd-article-image aligncenter block--article-image\" itemscope itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\"><div class=\"block--article-image__column\"><div class=\"block--article-image__image\"><img class=\"lazy\" data-src=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Altyn-Asyr-lake-Turkmenistan-Karakum-desert-1.jpg\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Altyn-Asyr-lake-Turkmenistan-Karakum-desert-1-768x461.jpg 768w, https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Altyn-Asyr-lake-Turkmenistan-Karakum-desert-1-1024x614.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Altyn-Asyr-lake-Turkmenistan-Karakum-desert-1.jpg 2560w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 768px, (max-width: 1024px) 1024px, 2560px\" alt=\"Altyn Asyr lake Karakum Turkmenistan, Shagivali Ahmed\"\/><\/div><div class=\"block--article-image__content\"><div itemprop=\"caption\" class=\"block--article-image__caption\"><em>Despite the billions of dollars spent on the Golden Age Lake in the Karakum desert, today it is almost empty [Image by: Shagivali Ahmed]<\/em><\/div><\/div><\/div><meta itemprop=\"contentUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Altyn-Asyr-lake-Turkmenistan-Karakum-desert-1.jpg\"\/><meta itemprop=\"contentSize\" content=\"1 MB\"\/><meta itemprop=\"height\" content=\"1536\"\/><meta itemprop=\"width\" content=\"2560\"\/><meta itemprop=\"author\"\/><meta itemprop=\"representativeOfPage\" content=\"true\"\/><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-lofty-ambitions\">Lofty ambitions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Niyazov used Soviet-style propaganda to promote the grandiose Turkmen Golden Age Lake and proclaim its many benefits, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>\u201cUp to 10 cubic kilometres of water will be diverted into the lake each year.\u201d<\/li><li>\u201cNew green oases, villages and sub-districts will appear in the endless expanse of the Karakum desert. Irrigated agriculture, animal husbandry and fishing industries will develop significantly.\u201d<\/li><li>\u201cThe Karashor depression can be filled with up to 140 km<sup>3<\/sup> of water. This is many times more than is accumulated in all of the country\u2019s water reservoirs, including Sarygamysh.\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Lake Sarygamysh, the country\u2019s largest natural inland lake, has reached critical levels of salinity \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/dec.ngo-tm.org\/1994-06.shtml\">up to 16 grams of salt per cubic metre<\/a>. Since the 1960s, water from the Amu Darya river has ceased to flow into the lake. Only drainage water from agricultural fields, with residues of pesticides and fertilizers, flows in.&nbsp;Yet apologists for the project don\u2019t seem embarrassed by the fact that the same fate awaits the Golden Age Lake.<br>Experts who criticised the project were met with the common refrain of \u201cAre you against the party?\u201d and \u201cThe decision has already been made at the highest level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-poor-water-governance\">Poor water governance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>But high-level decisions on water in Turkmenistan have often been illogical. The newly independent country was managed without a proper development strategy. Agricultural areas continued to expand without considering available water resources. Wheat was grown as well as cotton, the main agricultural crop, with the state arguing this was needed for self-sufficiency in food. A new irrigation network was built, which increased water losses in general. New agricultural land was created without <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fao.org\/nr\/water\/aquastat\/countries_regions\/TKM\/TKM-CP_eng.pdf\">collector and drainage networks<\/a>. As a result, the yield and quality of cotton and wheat has dropped significantly.<br><br>There has been endless reshuffling of ministers and their deputies, and indeed of the ministries themselves, since independence. The Ministry of Land Reclamation and Water Management formed in 1992 was abolished and merged with the Ministry of Agriculture in 1998. In 2000, water workers were again separated when a Ministry of Water Management was created. In 2016, these ministries were again merged into the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Management. Finally, in 2019 the State Committee for Water Management of Turkmenistan was formed. These changes have had a negative effect on the country\u2019s development and the population\u2019s living standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-narratives-of-success\">Narratives of success<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The official narrative is one of three decades of unprecedented success and victories. Current President Berdimuhamedov\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/cawater-info.net\/review\/turkmen_lake_11.htm\">enthusiastic speech<\/a> to mark the completion of the first stage of the project in July 2009 was reminiscent of Soviet general secretaries at Party Congresses:<br>\u201cA blessed time has come to the Turkmen land, where the most daring plans are made into a reality, where the most grandiose and large-scale projects come to life. Today, we have gathered here to become witnesses and participants in a truly historic event \u2013 the launch of the first stage of a unique site of the third millennium, an unprecedented hydrological structure \u2013 the Turkmen Lake \u2018Altyn Asyr\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-disastrous-consequences\">Disastrous consequences<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The first stage of the project involved building 800 km of canals across the desert to carry the collected drainage waters of the Lebap, Mary and Ahal districts towards Karashor. The channel was laid directly into the sand without any <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hronikatm.com\/2018\/07\/o-pechalnoy-sudbe-vodohranilishha-altyin-asyir\/\">cladding<\/a>, meaning most of the water disappeared into the sand. The northern canal was built in the same way.<br><br>Meteorological factors, such as sand drift induced by wind, were not taken into account during construction. As a result, the original course of the canal has shifted, as the water washed away the banks and flooded huge areas, forming lakes. In many places the original course of the canal has been lost entirely.<br><br>A decade since the first stage of the project was completed, <a href=\"http:\/\/meteojurnal.ru\/priroda\/budet-li-ozero-vo-vpadine-karashor\/\">independent sources<\/a> say that \u201cjudging by satellite images, at the moment practically no water at all is going into the Karakum depression via the water collectors that have been built. Its bed was, and remains, a salty desert.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In northern Turkmenistan\u2019s Dashoguz district, soil salinisation is worsening every year. The scale of the disaster is visible on satellite images: thousands of hectares of once-fertile land are covered in a white salt crust. Crop yield here has fallen significantly. To compensate for their losses, the tenants, who are cotton producers, are increasing the area of farmed land by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hronikatm.com\/2020\/03\/dashoguz-irrigation\/\">filling in water drainage collectors<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The heads of agricultural associations observe this situation in fear, as they are responsible for meeting state production quotas for cotton.<br>For many years, inter-farm channels to collect drainage water haven\u2019t been cleaned, and have become a source of salinisation for nearby land, including the Khorezm district of Uzbekistan. This can be observed in the main Daryalyk collector, which collects drainage water from the fields of Khorezm and Dashoguz and brings it to the Sarygamysh lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Uzbek side has repeatedly asked the Turkmen authorities to clean their part of the channel, because plant growth and siltation has led to the flooding of cotton fields and private lands in Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2018, authorities agreed to let Uzbekistan clean part of the channel on Turkmen territory. According to specialists from the Bossan Niyazovskii agricultural association of the Dashoguz district, Uzbek workers did this efficiently and free of charge. Furthermore, they offered to clean the whole system, up to Sarygamysh, if Turkmenistan would pay for it. However, according to our sources, the Turkmen side declined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Billions of dollars have been spent on water collection systems that aren\u2019t cleaned for years, leading to widespread soil salinisation. The same is true for the irrigation network: river and canal beds aren\u2019t cleaned for years, causing flooding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a class=\"wp-block-cd-related-news alignright block--related-news loading\" data-post-id=\"20034169\"><div class=\"block--related-news__image\"><\/div><div class=\"block--related-news__content\"><span class=\"block--related-news__heading\">Recommended<\/span><span class=\"block--related-news__title\"><\/span><\/div><\/a>\n\n\n\n<p>In June 2020, the Sultan-Bent dam in the Murghab river <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hronikatm.com\/2020\/06\/dam-break\/\">burst,<\/a> flooding a significant area of farmland and destroying cotton crops. The same month, the village of Nichka in Mary district was <a href=\"https:\/\/rus.azathabar.com\/a\/30901598.html\">flooded<\/a> with water from the Karakum canal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-small-scale-local-solutions\">Small-scale local solutions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In December 2019, the USAID programme Smart Waters <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hronikatm.com\/2019\/12\/dredge\/\">allocated<\/a> a USD 170,000 dredger to Turkmenistan to clean up the silt that has accumulated on the Murghab riverbed over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usaid.gov\/turkmenistan\/program-updates\/sep-2020-dredging-past\">many years<\/a>. In the past three decades, the river\u2019s water level has risen by almost three metres. This has led to frequent flooding of farmland. The dredger should reduce the risk of losing harvests and increase farmers\u2019 productivity, and what is retrieved from the riverbed can be used as fertiliser in the fields, <a href=\"https:\/\/tm.usembassy.gov\/dredging-up-the-past-a-clean-riverbed-is-changing-the-lives-of-turkmen-farmers\/\">according to a report<\/a> from the US embassy.<br><br>In September 2020, USAID gave Turkmenistan <a href=\"https:\/\/tm.usembassy.gov\/ru\/usaid-supports-improved-water-management-in-turkmenistan-ru\/\">equipment to monitor<\/a> water levels in real time at various points along the Murghab river, in order to control irrigation flow and create flood warnings. Support from USAID or Uzbekistan helps solve certain local issues, but the effects will be temporary unless the government develops a comprehensive solution to the increasingly serious water problems in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Authorities prefer to pour money into huge vanity projects than invest in local water solutions to help long-suffering farmers, says writer and environmental activist Farid Tukhbatullin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20000769,"featured_media":20057252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50039900,50039903],"tags":[556,50040320,607],"hashtags":[],"country":[50040741],"class_list":["post-20042251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-justice","category-water","tag-infrastructure","tag-irrigation","tag-water-scarcity","country-turkmenistan"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v26.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Turkmenistan fails to create vast lake in Karakum desert | Dialogue Earth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Authorities prefer to pour money into huge vanity projects than invest in local water solutions to help long-suffering farmers, says writer and environmental 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