All of the statements in this article are based on reliable sources and are reproduced at the end of this article
On the highway of G218, in addition to being able to see the endless desert, you can also enjoy the beautiful scenery of "water and sky", rippling blue waves, soaring water birds, and picturesque ecological scenes give people the illusion of being in the south of the Yangtze River!
This is the scene of the Tarim River, located in the northern part of the Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The Tarim River is the mother river of southern Xinjiang, with a total area of 1.02 million square kilometers and a total length of 2,486 kilometers, making it the largest inland river in China.
What is little known is that the lower reaches of the Tarim River have dried up for 30 years, so why did the Tarim River stop flowing, and how is it "rejuvenated" now?
The mother river of southern Xinjiang
The Tarim River is the mother river of southern Xinjiang, and its water source comes from the Tianshan Mountains and the Karakoram Mountains, and the Tarim River system nourishes a large area of oases south of the Tianshan Mountains.
The Tarim River means "horseless horse" in the Uyghur language, and is named after the Tarim River, which turns around its peaks and turns.
The Tarim River is located in the north of the Tarim Basin, which is a closed basin in which the famous 36 countries of the Western Regions have appeared in history.
The earliest description of the Tarim Basin by the ancients was Ban Gu's Hanshu Western Regions Biography: "There are mountains in the north and south, rivers in the center, six thousand miles from east to west, and more than 1,000 miles from north to south. Its river has two sources: one out of the Green Ridge Mountain, and the other out of Khotan. It merges with the Green Ridge River, and the east is injected into the Puchang Sea, and a salt Ze is also. ”
The materials used by Ban Gu to write about the Western Regions were all brought by Zhang Qian's envoy to the Western Regions, so the credibility of what he wrote was relatively high, and the historical materials focused on the Niya River, a tributary of the Tarim River.
The Niya River flows through the Gujing Kingdom, and there is a direct passage between the Gujing Kingdom and the Western Regions Protectorate established in the Han Dynasty, and the broken flow of the Niya River is inseparable from the decline of the Gujing Kingdom.
According to the literature, during the Western Han Dynasty on the mainland, there were irrigation projects in the middle and lower reaches of the Tarim River. In the Sui and Tang dynasties, a large amount of farmland was developed in many areas of the Tarim River Basin, which was large-scale and far-reaching.
In the early 20s of the 20th century, the Tarim River was rich in water, and it was even diverted into the Peacock River for a time, and Lop Nur was "resurrected" after nearly 1,500 years of dryness.
In modern times, a large number of people migrated to the Tarim Basin, which also led to the destruction of the local ecology, and in the fifties, the agricultural production of the Tarim Basin developed rapidly, and people began to open up land and cultivate land.
If you want to grow crops on arid land, you need water, so people have built water conservancy on the main stream of the Ta River and several major headwaters to divert water for irrigation.
In 1952, a dam was built in the vicinity of Inmanli at the mouth of the Rai River in Yuli County, which caused the Tahe River to redirect at the bend and flow into the old road, which also led to the gradual drying up of Lop Nur.
With the arrival of water sources, more and more herders live in the upper and lower reaches of the Ta River, which also makes the water source begin to decrease, and people can only continue to build reservoirs to store water in order to protect farming.
This behavior has also led to a decrease in water sources in the lower reaches of the Tarim River, and even dried up, as the lower reaches of the Tarim River were once filled with dense poplar forests, but since the Tarim River was cut off, the water above ground has been declining, and the surrounding vegetation has been dying one after another.
The Tarim River "resurrected"
Seeing that the Tarim River was gradually drying up, people also realized the seriousness of the ecological damage, and in the 90s of the last century, the government began to carry out comprehensive management of the Tarim River.
In 2000, the mainland made the first emergency water supply to the lower Tarim River Green Corridor, but because the Tarim River had been dry for so long, the water was swallowed up by the land.
In 2001, the mainland invested more than 12 billion yuan to build the Tarim River, which accounted for 8% of Xinjiang's GDP.
This is an ecological management project that hardly produces any direct economic benefits, and for the ecological environment of the Tarim River, the engineers who built the Tarim River have been working hard day and night on the front line.
The Tarim River Comprehensive Treatment Project was launched, and more than 10.7 billion yuan was invested in 29 counties and cities and 18 regimental farms along the route to carry out ecological water transportation. For more than 20 years, the continuous water supply has also revitalized the "mother river" of the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang.
In 2020, poplar forests on both sides of the river began to be replenished, so that the area of Lake Taitma in the lower reaches of the Tarim River has been restored to more than 500 square kilometers.
Populus euphratica, called "Tokrak" in Uyghur, means "the most beautiful tree". As an ancient tree species remnant of the Tertiary Period, Populus euphratica has a long growth period, and is resistant to drought, salinity, severe cold, heat, sandstorm, barrenness, and tenacious vitality.
At the same time, Populus euphratica is also the only deciduous tree that can survive in the desert, and there is a saying to describe Populus euphratica as "living for a thousand years without dying, dying for a thousand years, and immortal for a thousand years".
It can be seen how strong the vitality of the vegetation that can survive in the Tarim River is, and every autumn, the Tarim River in Xinjiang will present an extremely beautiful picture, with flowers, grass, green trees, flowers, birds, fish and insects appearing one after another. Add a touch of vitality to this piece of life forbidden.
In the rainy season, camels, red deer, yellow sheep and rabbits are bustling in the poplar forests of the Tarim River, as if telling the thousand-year-old history of the Tarim River.
There are also abundant orchards, continuous cotton fields, and herds of cattle and sheep. The enthusiastic Uyghur people reciprocate the tolerant Tarim River with fragrant wine, sweet singing, and an optimistic attitude.
Now that summer is coming, the Tarim River in Xinjiang will present a unique scenery, with thousands of years of vicissitudes of poplar and starry sky and sunrise reflecting each other, thus presenting a magnificent scene of vicissitudes.
The ice and snow in the Tianshan, Kunlun and Karakoram gradually melted. A trickle runs along the valley, around the desert, to the Tarim River, to farmland orchards, to poplar forests, to bushes.
On March 22, 2024, the mainland officially launched the first phase of the 25th downward ecological water transfer, which will carry 20 million cubic meters of ecological water to further strengthen the hydraulic connection between the river and the Zhigou River.
summary
Today's Tarim River is not the river that once dried up, but the Tarim River is greeted by infinite vitality, the Tarim River from the break to the reflow, and then to the great improvement of the ecological environment, are the continent's vivid interpretation of the concept of ecological civilization, and truly realize the harmonious coexistence of man and nature.
References
China Youth Daily2019-06-05 "The river has been dry for 30 years! Governance of the Tahe River in Xinjiang ushers in a new spring》
Xinjiang Party Building Network2021-01-06"Ecological Civilization Flowing in the Desert - A Review of the Comprehensive Management of the Tarim River Basin in the Past 20 Years"
Xinhua News Agency2022-06-22 "Xinjiang Tarim Basin: The Vicissitudes of Life and Magnificent Prosperity of Populus euphratica for a Thousand Years"
Baidu Encyclopedia "Tarim River"
Guangming Daily2024-03-23 "Tarim River Starts to Implement the 25th Ecological Water Transfer to the Downstream"