Tianchi is a business card in Xinjiang. Today, this business card is plagued by rumors that it may disappear after 80 years.
Nevertheless, compared with those lakes that have disappeared, Tianchi is lucky after all.
Recently, news from the Environmental Protection Department of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region said that the lake area in Xinjiang has been reduced from1.2000 square kilometers at the beginning of the founding of New China to 7000 square kilometers. The wetland area decreased from 2.8 million hectares to 6.5438+0.48 million hectares. Over the past 60 years, lakes and wetlands in Xinjiang have been "thin" by nearly half.
In order to prove this point, the data of "China Lake Water Quality, Water Quantity and Biological Resources Survey" which lasted for four years at the end of last year showed that in the past 50 years, 243 lakes in China have disappeared; Among them, there are 62 lakes in Xinjiang, accounting for 1/4 of the total number of disappeared lakes in China.
Tianchi: Will it disappear after 80 years?
From Urumqi westbound 1 10 km, Tianchi looks like a huge sapphire embedded in the mountainside of Bogda Peak, the highest peak in the East Tianshan Mountains. Tianchi Lake, hidden in the embrace of mountains, is a typical natural alpine lake with a half-moon surface of ***4.9 square kilometers.
However, in recent years, the world-famous Tianchi Lake has been eroded by sediment, and the lake surface is shrinking.
According to the survey, from 197 1 to 2003, Tianchi was hit by debris flow, and the sediment pushed to the center of the lake by 2 17 meters. From 2003 to 2006, the coastline of Tianchi has advanced by 54 meters, and the lake surface of Tianchi has shrunk by 3.47% for many years. By 2007, the depth of Tianchi Lake had dropped from the average of 100 meters before10 to 80 meters.
According to this, experts predict that Tianchi may disappear in 80 years if it is not treated.
Also troubled by the rumor of "disappearance" is Chaiwobao Lake, one of the important water sources in Urumqi.
Last year, a news circulating on the Internet caught the public's attention: "Chaiwobao Lake is expected to become a salt lake by 20 13. If the amount of water entering the lake continues to decrease, the lake will disappear in 2020. "
In fact, this specific countdown period comes from a water quality assessment report made by an expert group sent by relevant departments in 2002.
According to the report, the salinity of freshwater lake is below 4 grams per liter, and when the value reaches above 35, it can be called salt lake. With the artificial reduction and evaporation of fresh water supply in Chaiwobao Lake, the salinity will be higher and higher.
20 10, 10 Urumqi Municipal People's Congress pointed out in a motion that the water source of Chaiwobao has formed a funnel area of 87.68 square kilometers, the groundwater level has dropped by 8 meters to 12 meters, and the lake area has decreased by nearly 6 square kilometers.
According to the analysis of geological experts, Chaiwopu Lake is in the late stage of lake evolution. At present, the lake water level is close to the bottom of the lake basin. Once near the bottom of the basin, the lake will rapidly shrink and disappear. At present, Chaiwobao Lake is in a stage of rapid atrophy and disappearance.
Ebinur Lake: The next Lop Nur?
Shaquanzi is a little-known railway station, less than 20 kilometers away from Ebinur Lake.
Although various methods have been adopted to prevent and fix sand for many years, the salt ash in Ebinur Lake has made this station more and more dusty-the salt ash piled up in mountains is about to cross the courtyard wall.
Ebinur Lake is the largest saltwater lake in Xinjiang. In 1950s, the water area of Ebinur Lake once reached 1.25 square kilometers. Due to the surrounding land development and industrial and agricultural water use, Ebinur Lake is shrinking at an average annual rate of more than 20 square kilometers, which is 290 times that of the natural dry period.
"At the worst time, the lake area once shrank to 382 square kilometers. These two years have been good, and the government quoted the Bortala River for supply. At present, the lake has nearly 600 square kilometers. " The person in charge of the Ebinur Lake Wetland Reserve Administration said.
Experts from Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences said that Ebinur Lake will become the second Lop Nur if the ecological environment is not protected.
This is also the main reason why the media has paid so much attention to Ebinur Lake in recent years.
Ebinur Lake, located at the southwest end of Junggar Basin in Xinjiang, is an important ecological barrier in Xinjiang and northwest China, and also a unique wildlife gene bank in wetlands. In recent years, endangered species such as Betula platyphylla and Red Deer in Ebinur Lake have been newly discovered. At the same time, it is also a channel for birds to migrate from the Indian Ocean to Siberia and from the inland of China to Central Asia.
However, because it is located downwind of Alashankou, Ebinur Lake has become one of the four sandstorm sources in China.
Experts pointed out that the shrinkage of Ebinur Lake caused the groundwater level to drop, accelerated the salinization and desertification in the surrounding areas of this basin, and deteriorated the ecology, which became the second major ecological problem that plagued Xinjiang after Lop Nur dried up.
According to the calculation of the Environmental Protection Department of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the dust amount of salt dust particles smaller than 0.02 micron is 16.7 times that of dust at the same wind speed. According to the estimation of relevant experts, the salt dust rolled up from the bottom of Ebinur Lake by strong winds is as high as 4.8 million tons every year, which falls on the northern slope of Tianshan Mountain in Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu and Inner Mongolia, and even the whole North China is affected by it.
At present, a desert belt of 1500 square kilometers has been formed around Ebinur Lake, and it is expanding at a rate of 39.8 square kilometers per year. Moreover, due to the increase of floating dust weather, the content of granular sodium salt in floating dust is high, and the incidence of lung diseases, respiratory diseases, eye diseases and cardiovascular diseases of residents in surrounding counties and cities is increasing year by year.
Salt dust also accelerated the melting of the three surrounding glaciers. The local people said, "The salt desert and alkali dust formed by Ebinur Lake fell on cotton and died, and the grass withered. Even cattle and sheep have diarrhea after eating grass stained with salt dust. "
Disappearing: more terrible than "slimming"!
What is more terrible than shrinking and "slimming" is to disappear directly.
"The first problem facing national lakes is that some lakes have disappeared and shrunk." According to Chen, director of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and academician of China Academy of Sciences, it is "sad" that lakes disappear, shrink and dry up.
In the past 50 years, 243 lakes have disappeared in China, of which 62 lakes in Xinjiang have disappeared, ranking first; Inner Mongolia followed closely, disappearing 59; Hubei ranked third, with 55 people missing; Jiangsu ranks fourth, lacking11; Jiangxi and Anhui ranked fifth, each with 10 disappearing.
In this regard, Wu Shuo, a researcher and doctoral supervisor of Nanjing Institute of Geography and Lakes, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who participated in the survey, said: "At present, there are four lakes 114 with an area of about 6,400 square kilometers in Xinjiang, accounting for about 7.7% of the national lake area. We could see some lakes a few years ago, but now we can't find them. "
These disappearing lakes are mainly distributed in southern Xinjiang, and the most famous one is Lop Nur.
It used to be an oasis of life, with herds of cattle and horses, surrounded by green forests and clear rivers. Until the 1950s, there were about 2,000 square kilometers on the lake. In 1960s, Lop Nur gradually dried up due to the cutoff of the lower reaches of Tarim River, and disappeared completely in 1972.
After the drought in Lop Nur, great changes have taken place in the surrounding ecological environment. All the herbs have died, and Hu Yangshu, the defender of sand control, has also died piece by piece. The desert is advancing at a speed of 3 to 5 meters per year, and Lop Nur quickly blends with the vast Taklimakan desert and becomes a barren land, which has since been called the "sea of death".
Tetema Lake, with an area of 88 square kilometers, also disappeared near 1974.
In the 1950s in Xinjiang, there were 52 lakes with an area of more than 5 square kilometers, with a total area of 9,700 square kilometers. But by the end of 1970s, in just 20 or 30 years, pearls such as Lop Nur, Manas Lake and Taitema Lake had disappeared one after another.
Another grim reality is that in recent years, not only the lakes in Xinjiang are shrinking, but also the rivers and groundwater levels are declining to varying degrees.
In 2008, some media reported that the groundwater level in changji city dropped14m, and the 250m deep well could not pump water. The groundwater level in Urumqi is also declining at a rate of several tens of centimeters per year. The groundwater level in Qitai, Jimsar, Fukang and Turpan-Hami basins has dropped seriously, and the strategic reserve of groundwater is imminent.
Human activities: it can be called "the culprit"!
Most lakes are important flood storage and detention areas, which play an important role in river throughput, flood storage and peak shaving. Lakes are important reservoirs of water resources, which have great functions of intercepting land-based pollution and purifying water quality, and have made important contributions to human survival, development and reproduction.
Jiang Jiahu, a researcher at Nanjing Institute of Geography and Lakes, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that there are two reasons for the disappearance of lakes: one is normal disappearance, and lakes in some areas of Xinjiang are left to fend for themselves; The other is abnormal extinction, which is related to natural factors or human factors. Among them, the disappearance of many lakes on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is related to global warming. Global warming leads to the decrease of precipitation, the degradation of glaciers or the increase of water volatilization in this area, which leads to the disappearance of lakes. Human activities are the main reason for the disappearance of lakes in recent years.
Experts believe that lakes are a barometer reflecting the impact of climate change and human activities.
"Climate and human activities are the main reasons for the disappearance of lakes." In Wu Shuo, the disappearance or regeneration of lakes is closely related to human activities in the basin. The impact of human activities on lakes has played the role of climate effect amplifier, which has intensified the range of change and increased the frequency of lakes.
For example, the disappearance of Lop Nur is the inevitable result of climate change in arid areas, but human reclamation activities in the upper reaches have intensified this trend. In recent 30 years, the population on both sides of the Tarim River has soared, and both cultivated land and mining need water. People desperately asked the Tarim River for water, and finally the Tarim River was overwhelmed and the downstream was cut off. Lop Nur without water eventually became a dead lake, a dry lake.
Ebinur Lake also faced rapid shrinkage in 1960s and 1970s, which was related to the decrease of total water resources in the basin due to the dry climate at that time. However, under the background of drought, the water consumption in the basin has also increased sharply due to human activities, which has led to a sharp drop in the amount of water entering the lake and an intensification of lake shrinkage.
Rational development and utilization of water resources, improvement of lake ecological environment and real-time protection of the lake area are the general suggestions of experts and scholars for lake protection.
Fortunately, people today have realized this.
On May 20th, the reporter saw in Tianchi Scenic Area that an alpine botanical garden under construction had begun to take shape. This is one of the methods of biological control of Tianchi sediment in view of the deteriorating ecological trend.
At present, Xinjiang has invested nearly 250 million yuan to carry out natural forest protection projects, sediment deposition control projects, Tianchi wetland nature reserve construction, closing hillsides to facilitate afforestation and planting grass.
Tianchi, as a World Natural Heritage Project declared by China on 20 13, successfully passed the technical evaluation of the World Heritage Center and was highly praised.
In order to prevent Ebinur Lake from shrinking and disappearing, since the 1990s, Xinjiang has successively implemented the main air duct treatment project of Ebinur Lake. Through the implementation of natural forest protection, wetland desert ecological management, efficient water-saving ecological agriculture, returning farmland to forests, hot springs, Bole, and water-saving projects in the middle and lower reaches of the Bortala River in Jinghe River, the riparian vegetation has been restored to a certain extent.
20 1 1 Urumqi municipal government started the "water supply project in Chaiwobao area" to take water from Aksu River, and designed a diversion pipeline of 39.4 kilometers, with an annual water diversion capacity of19.25 million cubic meters.
In China's fairy tales, many lake legends are transformed from tears. But today, in the face of one shrinking lake after another, our worry is: don't let the lake turn into a tear at last.