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China Injects Water Into Dry River Course
China began discharging water into the dry lower reaches of the Tarim River, the longest inland river in China, at 1 pm Friday.
The operation, the second launched this year, is expected to play a very important role in maintaining sound ecology along the section of the Tarim River, experts said.
A total of 220 million cubic meters of water will be injected into the 180-kilometer section of the dry river course from Friday until February 15, 2001. The first operation between April 30 and July 20 sent 100 million cubic meters of water into the dry river section.
The 1,321-kilometer-long Tarim River runs from west to east along the northern verge of the Taklimakan Desert, the biggest moving desert in the country, and flows into the Taitema Lake in Xinjiang Autonomous Region.
The 320-kilometer-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.
Sources from the local water resources department said that the water was diverted from the Bosten Lake, 530 kilometers away, into the Daxihaizi Reservoir, the current terminal of the Tarim River, and then discharged into the dry lower reaches.
Monitoring data of the Ministry of Water Resources show that the first water-injecting operation raised the underground water level of the river course by 3.15 meters, and remarkable increases were also recorded in areas along both banks of the river.
Zhang Fawang, director of the bureau for management of Tarim River valley, said that the current operation will help raise the underground water level by more than 3 meters on the current level.
Before the first water-injecting operation, the underground water level was seven to nine meters under the earth surface.
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