The Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers are the mother rivers of Central Asia, which eventually flow into the Aral Sea and are the main source of water for the Aral Sea. However, as the population of the countries along the rivers grows, the demand for land is increasing, and the middle and lower reaches of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers are dotted with large areas of Gobi desert. There is only one way to solve the land problem: that is, to divert water from the "two rivers" to transform the Gobi desert. In addition, the Gobi desert area on both sides of the river is generally flat, with an average altitude of about 200 meters, which is very suitable for the construction of water diversion irrigation projects.
The construction of the 1,400-kilometer Karakum Canal near the Amu Darya River suddenly pumped 25% of the water from the Amu Darya River to the Gobi Desert in the southwest of Turkmenistan, reclaiming a large amount of land, making Turkmenistan the second largest cotton producer in Central Asia (it should be known that light and water are indispensable in the cultivation of cotton, which shows the importance of the Amu Darya River to Turkmenistan). Let's talk about the water conservancy projects near the Syr Darya River.
Originating in the Tien Shan Mountains, the Syr Darya River flows out of the Fergana Basin into the endless Gobi desert regions of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and finally flows into the northern Aral Sea within Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan is currently damming the northern Aral Sea, intercepting the waters of the Syr Darya River in the northern lake area).
During the Soviet era, along the Amu Darya River, engineers built the Chadara Dam on the Syr Darya River in what is now Kazakhstan's Shadara region in order to obtain water sources to reclaim land. Why was this project chosen here? Originally, around the Shadara Dam was a depression group in the Kyzylkum Desert, which was built to intercept as many waters of the Syr Darya River as possible (the Syr Darya River has the largest flow in spring and summer, and after interception can maximize the uneven distribution of the river's water time). The completion of the Shadara Dam in 1968 allowed the Syr Darya River to flood into the surrounding depressions, forming a large reservoir with an area of 900 square kilometers and a storage capacity of 5.7 billion cubic meters. At the same time, four 25 MW generator sets were installed inside the dam, with a total installed capacity of 100 MW, which can meet the household electricity consumption of 100,000 residents around (each household consumes 1 kW). Although the Shadara Reservoir was built very successfully, engineers underestimated the power of the Syr Darya Flood.
In the spring of 1969, the upper reaches of the Sidara Reservoir (that is, the upper Syr Darya River) occurred a large-scale heavy precipitation coupled with the spring snowy mountains began to melt, resulting in a surge in the flow of the Syr Darya River, when the flood reached the location of the Sidara Dam, it has far exceeded the discharge rate of the dam, the height of the lake water surface continues to rise, is the Sidara Dam about to collapse the dam accident? The answer is: no!
To the southwest of the Shadara Reservoir is a place called the Aydar Depression, which is also one of the depressions in the Kyzylkum Desert, but it is deeper and larger than the depression where the Shadara Reservoir was built, and the inside of the depression is originally a dry salt lake. When the water of Lake Shadara continued to rise, the lake broke through the "natural earth dam" connecting the two depressions from the southwest, and the flood surged into this ancient lake basin depression that had dried up for tens of thousands of years, and the flood continued to cut the soil layer between the two depressions, and soon formed a smooth waterway.
According to statistics, in the year from February 1969 to February 1970, the Shadara Reservoir discharged a total of 1.26 billion cubic meters of fresh water into the Aydar Depression, resulting in the formation of a large lake with fresh water inside the depression. Since Lake Shadara and Lake Aydar have been interconnected, from 1969 onwards, every year the water of the Syr Dar River during the flood will flow into Lake Aydar, and Lake Aydar will continue to grow. So far, the water surface area of Aydar Lake is more than 3,000 square kilometers, the flood period of the rainy season can reach more than 4,000 square kilometers, and the water storage capacity is 44.3 billion cubic meters (the average annual runoff of the Syr Dar River is only more than 30 billion cubic meters, that is to say, the Aydar Lake has stored the water of the Syr Dar River for nearly a year and a half), which is a veritable super large lake in Central Asia, especially in such an arid desert area (this is similar to Selsar Lake on the Tigris River in Iraq, which is a large artificial lake, However, Lake Selsar is intentional, while Lake Aydar is unintentionally planting willows).)
After the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the Sharada Reservoir was assigned to Kazakhstan, while lake Aydar was assigned to Uzbekistan, and in order to rationalize the distribution of water, the two countries built a diversion dam on the waterway connecting the Sharada reservoir and Lake Aydar (as shown in the figure below).
Most of the water resources of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers were intercepted halfway, resulting in a "pitifully small amount" of water reaching the Aral Sea, which directly led to the Aral Sea's supply being much lower than evaporation, leading to a large area of the Aral Sea's lake surface. But from an optimistic point of view, the people have only moved the Aral Sea to a more suitable location for production and life, we can take the Sharada Reservoir - the new "little Aral Sea" in lake Aydar, the Karakum Canal as a branch of the Amu Darya, the water did not disappear out of thin air, just to the place where it should work.