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Water to Flow Again in Dry Section of China's Longest Inland River
China is diverting water, for the third time in the past year, into the dry section of the lower reaches of the Tarim River, the longest inland river in China, in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The water is expected to flow into the Taitema Lake, the river' s original destination, by September this year at the latest, water conservancy experts predicted.
This means that water will run through the whole course of the Tarim River again after the lower reaches dried up 30 years ago, said Zhuo Yuxin, a senior engineer with the Tarim River Valley Management Administration.
A 320 kilometer section of the lower reaches of the Tarim River dried up in 1972 following the construction of the Daxihaizi Reservoir at the middle reaches of the river. The Taitema Lake totally dried up in 1974.
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 originally flowed into the Taitema Lake in Xinjiang.
Due to a sharp increase in water use on the upper and middle reaches of the river, the river has become shorter and shorter. Research shows that the areas surrounding the lower reaches of the river have become the largest desert area in Xinjiang and the desert area is expanding more rapidly than in other areas of Xinjiang.
China launched the water diversion project to save the ecological system along the river's lower reaches last year.
Between April 30 and July 20 last year, and from October 3 last year to February 15 this year, a total of 100 million cubic meters and 220 million cubic meters of water respectively were diverted from the Bosten Lake to the dry lower reaches of the Tarim River. A section of 156 kilometers of the river's lower reaches has been filled up with water.
The Bosten Lake, 530 kilometers northwest of the Daxihaizi Reservoir, is the largest inland fresh water lake in China. Last summer, the lake was 1,049 meters deep and the water area expanded to 1,700 square kilometers from 1,300 square kilometers in normal years.
Local water conservancy departments are dredging the rest of the dry river course, which is filled up with sand dunes, to guarantee that the water can flow into the Taitema Lake in due time.
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