China will divert water from Bosten Lake, one of China’s major fresh water lake, to the dry lower course of the Tarim River in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, this year.
This will be the third water injection into the Tarim River, the longest inland river in China. A total of 327 million cubic meters of water were discharged into the lower reaches of the Tarim River respectively in May and November last year. As a result, the underground water level of the river course at its lower reaches rose by three meters.
The current move is to extend the water flow to the original end of the Tarim River which connects with the Taitema Lake.
The regional water conservancy department pledged to curb ecological deterioration along Tarim River in five to 10 years.
The 1,321-km-long Tarim River runs west to east along the northern edge of the Taklimakan Desert, the biggest moving desert in the country, and flows into the Taitema Lake.
The 320-km-long section of the lower reaches of the river and the Taitema Lake dried up in 1972 following the construction of a reservoir on the river which blocked water from flowing into the lower reaches.
(People’s Daily 03/16/2001)
