Human and Natural Impacts on the Water Resources in the Syr Darya River Basin, Central Asia
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State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011 China
2
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 19A, Yuquan Road, Shijingshan District, Beijing 10049, China
3
Chinese Academy of Sciences Research Centre for Ecology and Environment of Central Asia, Urumqi 830011, China
4
Department of Geography, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
5
Sino-Belgian Joint Laboratory of Geo-Information, Ghent University, 9000 Gent, Belgium
6
Sino-Belgian Joint Laboratory of Geo-Information, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Urumqi 830011, China
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2019, 11(11), 3084; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113084
Received: 14 March 2019 / Revised: 23 May 2019 / Accepted: 24 May 2019 / Published: 31 May 2019
(This article belongs to the Section Environmental Sustainability and Applications)
Water resources are increasingly under stress in Central Asia because downstream countries are highly dependent on upstream countries. Water is essential for irrigation and is becoming scarcer due to climate change and human activities. Based on 20 hydrological stations, this study firstly analyzed the annual and seasonal spatial–temporal changes of the river discharges, precipitation, and temperature in the Syr Darya River Basin and then the possible relationships between these factors were detected. Finally, the potential reasons for the river discharge variations have been discussed. The results show that the river discharges in the upper stream of the basin had significantly risen from 1930 to 2006, mainly due to the increase in temperature (approximately 0.3 °C per decade), which accelerated the melting of glaciers, while it decreased in the middle and lower regions due to the rising irrigation. In the middle of the basin, the expansion of the construction land (128.83 km2/year) and agricultural land (66.68 km2/year) from 1992 to 2015 has significantly augmented the water consumption. The operations of reservoirs and irrigation canals significantly intercepted the river discharge from the upper streams, causing a sharp decline in the river discharges in the middle and lower reaches of the Syr Darya River in 1973. The outcomes obtained from this study allowed us to understand the changes in the river discharges and provided essential information for effective water resource management in the Syr Darya River Basin.
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Keywords:
Syr Darya River Basin; river discharge; climate change; trend analysis; land use
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MDPI and ACS Style
Zou, S.; Jilili, A.; Duan, W.; Maeyer, P.D.; de Voorde, T.V. Human and Natural Impacts on the Water Resources in the Syr Darya River Basin, Central Asia. Sustainability 2019, 11, 3084. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113084
AMA Style
Zou S, Jilili A, Duan W, Maeyer PD, de Voorde TV. Human and Natural Impacts on the Water Resources in the Syr Darya River Basin, Central Asia. Sustainability. 2019; 11(11):3084. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113084
Chicago/Turabian StyleZou, Shan, Abuduwaili Jilili, Weili Duan, Philippe D. Maeyer, and Tim V. de Voorde 2019. "Human and Natural Impacts on the Water Resources in the Syr Darya River Basin, Central Asia" Sustainability 11, no. 11: 3084. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113084
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