On February 16^th, the Ministry of Water Resources formally announced the plan of emergency water diversion to the lower reaches of the Tarim River. 

The 2005 emergency water diversion will be implemented respectively in the interval period of irrigation in the spring and in the autumn. Two water diversions will transport 250 million m³ of water to the lower reaches of the Tarim River. 

According to the data provided by the Sashankou Reservoir in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the coming water of the Kaidu River- source of the Tarim River is 3.168 billion m³, with only 9.999 m³/s entering into the reservoir, which is at the lowest level since 1995. 

Tarim River is located in the southern part of the Xingjiang Uygur Autonomous Region with a total length of 2179 km and is the largest inland river basin in the World.  

Since 1950^th, ecological system of the Tarim Basin has been damaged along with the increase population and agricultural development. Due to the over-exploitation of water and low efficiency of water use, water stress tends to be more severe in these years. The “Green Corridor” as we used to call the area, has been deteriorated for many lands are alkalinized, and moreover sandstorms happen very often. 

It is known that six emergency water diversions were carried out in the Tarim Basin since 2000. In 2003 the Taitema Lake that situates at the end of the Tarim River created a storage of about 200 km², which ends the dry-up history in the lower reaches of the river in nearly 30 years. 

However, it is still worried by water specialists that although water diversions alleviated the degradation of the “Green Corridor”, the problem has not been solved. Strict measures are needed to implement integrated water management, water licenses and regulate water allocation and management, so as to recover the ecological water use.

Source:  www.yellowriver.gov.cn   Editor:HuangFeng