The nameAmu is said to have come from the medieval city ofĀmul (later Chahar Joy/Charjunow, and now known asTürkmenabat) in modernTurkmenistan, withDaryā being the Persian word for 'lake' or 'sea'. MedievalArabic andIslamic sources call the riverJeyhoun (Arabic:جَـيْـحُـوْن,romanized: Jayḥūn), which is derived fromGihon, thebiblical name for one of the four rivers of theGarden of Eden.[6][7] The Amu Darya passes through one of the world's highest deserts.[8]
Western travelers in the 19th century mentioned that one of the names by which the river was known in Afghanistan wasGozan, and that this name was used by Greek, Mongol, Chinese, Persian, Jewish, and Afghan historians. However, this name is no longer used.[9]
"Hara (Bokhara) and to the river of Gozan (that is to say, the Amu, (called the Oxus by Europeans )) ..."[10]
"the Gozan River is the River Balkh, i.e. the Oxus or the Amu Darya ..."[11]
"... and were brought into Halah (modern dayBalkh), and Habor (which is Pesh Habor orPeshawar), and Hara (which isHerat), and to the river Gozan (which is the Ammoo, also called Jehoon) ..."[12]
The river's total length is 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) and its drainage basin totals 534,739 square kilometres (206,464 sq mi) in area, providing a mean discharge of around 97.4 cubic kilometres (23.4 cu mi)[1] of water per year. The river is navigable for over 1,450 kilometres (900 mi). All of the water comes from the high mountains in the south where annualprecipitation can be over 1,000 mm (39 in). Even before large-scale irrigation began, high summer evaporation meant that not all of this discharge reached theAral Sea – though there is some evidence the large Pamirglaciers provided enoughmeltwater for the Aral to overflow during the 13th and 14th centuries.
Since the end of the 19th century, there have been four different claimants as the true source of the Oxus:
The Sarhad orLittle Pamir River flowing down the Little Pamir in the HighWakhan
Lake Chamaktin, which discharges to the east into theAksu River, which in turn becomes theMurghab and thenBartang rivers, and which eventually joins the Panj Oxus branch 350 km downstream at Roshan Vomar in Tajikistan.
A glacier turns into theWakhan River and joins the Pamir River about 50 kilometres (31 mi) downstream.[13] Bill Colegrave's expedition to Wakhan in 2007 found that both claimants 2 and 3 had the same source, the Chelab stream, which bifurcates on the watershed of the Little Pamir, half flowing into Lake Chamaktin and half into the parent stream of the Little Pamir/Sarhad River. Therefore, the Chelab stream may be properly considered the true source or parent stream of the Oxus.[14] The Panj River forms the border ofAfghanistan andTajikistan. It flows west toIshkashim where it turns north and then north-west through thePamirs passing theTajikistan–Afghanistan Friendship Bridge. It subsequently forms the border of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan for about 200 kilometres (120 mi), passingTermez and theAfghanistan–Uzbekistan Friendship Bridge. It delineates the border of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan for another 100 kilometres (62 mi) before it flows into Turkmenistan atAtamurat. It flows across Turkmenistan south to north, passingTürkmenabat, and forms the border of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan from Halkabat. It is then split by theTuyamuyun Hydro Complex into many waterways that used to form theriver delta joining the Aral Sea, passingUrgench,Daşoguz, and other cities, but it does not reach what is left of the sea any more and is lost in the desert. Use of water from the Amu Darya forirrigation has been a major contributing factor to the shrinking of the Aral Sea since the late 1950s. Historical records state that in different periods, the river flowed into theAral Sea (from the south), into theCaspian Sea (from the east), or both, similar to theSyr Darya (Jaxartes, inAncient Greek). Partly based on such records, firstTsarist and laterSoviet engineers proposed to divert the Amu Darya to the Caspian Sea by constructing theTranscaspian Canal.[15][16]
Pontoon Bridge on the Amu River nearUrgench, in 2014 it was replaced by the stationary bridge.
The 534,769 square kilometres (206,475 sq mi) of the Amu Daryadrainage basin include most of Tajikistan, the southwest corner ofKyrgyzstan, the northeast corner of Afghanistan, a narrow portion of eastern Turkmenistan and the western half of Uzbekistan. Part of the Amu Darya basindivide in Tajikistan forms that country's border with China (in the east) and Pakistan (to the south). About 61% of the drainage lies within Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, while 39% is in Afghanistan.[17]
The abundant water flowing in the Amu Darya comes almost entirely fromglaciers in thePamir Mountains andTian Shan,[18]which, standing above the surrounding arid plain, collect atmospheric moisture which otherwise would probably escape elsewhere. Without its mountain water sources, the Amu Darya would not exist—because it rarely rains in the lowlands through which most of the river flows. Of the total drainage area, only about 200,000 square kilometres (77,000 sq mi) actively contribute water to the river.[19]This is because many of the river's major tributaries (especially theZeravshan River) have been diverted, and much of the river's drainage is arid. Throughout most of the steppe, the annual rainfall is about 300 millimetres (12 in).[17][20]
AncientBactriaBāqī Chaghānyānī pays homage toBabur beside the Amu Darya river, AD 1504
The ancientGreeks called the Amu Darya theOxus. In ancient times, the river was regarded as the boundary betweenGreater Iran andṪūrān (Persian:تُوران).[3] The river's drainage lies in the area between the former empires ofGenghis Khan andAlexander the Great, although they occurred at very different times. When the Mongols came to the area, they used the water of the Amu Darya to floodKonye-Urgench.[21] One southern route of theSilk Road ran along part of the Amu Darya northwestward fromTermez before going westwards to theCaspian Sea.
According to the Quaternary International, it is possible that the Amu Darya's course across theKarakum Desert has gone through several major shifts in the past few thousand years.[22] Much of the time – most recently from the 13th century to the late 16th century – the Amu Darya emptied into both the Aral and the Caspian Seas, reaching the latter via a largedistributary called theUzboy River. The Uzboy splits off from the main channel just south of the river's delta. Sometimes the flow through the two branches was more or less equal, but often most of the Amu Darya's flow split to the west and flowed into the Caspian.
People began to settle along the lower Amu Darya and the Uzboy in the 5th century, establishing a thriving chain of agricultural lands, towns, and cities. In about AD 985, the massiveGurganj Dam at the bifurcation of the forks started to divert water to the Aral.Genghis Khan's troops destroyed the dam in 1221, and the Amu Darya shifted to distributing its flow more or less equally between the main stem and the Uzboy.[23] But in the 18th century, the river again turned north, flowing into the Aral Sea, a path it has taken since. Less and less water flowed down the Uzboy. When Russian explorer Bekovich-Cherkasski surveyed the region in 1720, the Amu Darya did not flow into the Caspian Sea anymore.[24]
By the 1800s, the ethnographic makeup of the region was described byPeter Kropotkin as the communities of "the vassal Khanates of Maimene, Khulm, Kunduz, and even the Badakshan and Wahkran."[25] An Englishman,William Moorcroft, visited the Oxus around 1824 during theGreat Game period.[26] Another Englishman, a naval officer calledJohn Wood, came with an expedition to find the source of the river in 1839. He found modern-dayLake Zorkul, called it Lake Victoria, and proclaimed he had found the source.[27] Then, the French explorer and geographer Thibaut Viné collected a lot of information about this area during five expeditions between 1856 and 1862.
The question of finding a route between the Oxus valley and India has been of concern historically. A direct route crosses extremely high mountain passes in theHindu Kush and isolated areas likeKafiristan. Some in Britain feared that the Empire of Russia, which at the time wielded great influence over the Oxus area, would overcome these obstacles and find a suitable route through which to invadeBritish India – but this never came to pass.[28] The area was taken over by Russia during theRussian conquest of Turkestan.
TheSoviet Union became the ruling power in the early 1920s and expelledMohammed Alim Khan. It later put down theBasmachi movement and killedIbrahim Bek. A large refugee population of Central Asians, including Turkmen, Tajiks, and Uzbeks, fled to northern Afghanistan.[29] In the 1960s and 1970s the Soviets started using the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya to irrigate extensivecotton fields in the Central Asian plain. Before this time, water from the rivers was already being used for agriculture, but not on this massive scale. TheQaraqum Canal, Karshi Canal, and Bukhara Canal were among the largest of the irrigation diversions built. However, theMain Turkmen Canal, which would have diverted water along the dry Uzboy River bed into central Turkmenistan, was never built. In the course of theSoviet–Afghan War in the 1970s, Soviet forces used the valley to invade Afghanistan throughTermez.[30] The Soviet Union fell in the 1990s and Central Asia split up into the many smaller countries that lie within or partially within the Amu Darya basin.[31]
During the Soviet era, a resource-sharing system was instated in whichKyrgyzstan andTajikistan shared water originating from the Amu andSyr Daryas withKazakhstan,Turkmenistan, andUzbekistan in summer. In return,Kyrgyzstan andTajikistan received Kazakh, Turkmen, and Uzbek coal, gas, and electricity in winter. After the fall of the Soviet Union this system disintegrated and the Central Asian nations have failed to reinstate it. Inadequate infrastructure, poor water management, and outdated irrigation methods all exacerbate the issue.[32]
TheCaspian tiger used to occur along the river's banks.[33] After its extirpation, the Darya's delta was suggested as a potential site for the introduction of its closest surviving relative, theSiberian tiger. A feasibility study was initiated to investigate if the area is suitable and if such an initiative would receive support from relevant decision makers. A viable tiger population of about 100 animals would require at least 5,000 km2 (1,900 sq mi) of large tracts of contiguous habitat with rich prey populations. Such habitat is not available at this stage and cannot be provided in the short term. The proposed region is therefore unsuitable for the reintroduction, at least at this stage.[34]
Since March 2022, the building of the 285 kmQosh Tepa Canal has been underway in northernAfghanistan to divert water from the Amu Darya.[35]Uzbekistan has expressed concern that the canal will have an adverse effect on its agriculture.[36] The canal is also expected to make theAral Sea disaster worse, and in 2023 Uzbek officials held talks on the canal with the Taliban.[37] The Taliban has made the canal a priority, with images supplied byPlanet Labs demonstrate that from April 2022 to February 2023, more than 100 km of canal was excavated.[38] According to the Taliban, the initiative is expected to convert 550,000 hectares of desert into farmland.[38]
In January 2023, theXinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Company (aka CAPEIC) signed a $720 million four-year investment deal with theTaliban government ofAfghanistan for extraction on its side of the Amu Darya basin. The deal will see a 15% royalty given to the Afghan government over the course of its 25-year term.[39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47] The Chinese see this basin as the third-largest potential gas field in the world.[47]
The Oxus river, and Arnold's poem, fire the imaginations of the children who adventure with ponies over the moors of the West Country in the 1930s children's bookThe Far-Distant Oxus. There were two sequels,Escape to Persia andOxus in Summer.[49]
Out of the mist and hum of that low land, Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, Rejoicing, through the hushedChorasmian waste, Under the solitary moon: — he flowed Right for the polar star, past Orgunjè, Brimming, and bright, and large: then sands begin To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, And split his currents; that for many a league The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles — Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had In his high mountain-cradle inPamere, A foiled circuitous wanderer: — till at last The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide His luminous home of waters opens, bright And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars Emerge, and shine upon theAral Sea.
^Glantz, Michael H. (2005-01-01). "Water, Climate, and Development Issues in the Amu Darya Basin".Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change.10 (1):23–50.doi:10.1007/s11027-005-7829-8.ISSN1573-1596.S2CID154617195.
^Agaltseva, N.A.; Borovikova, L.N.; Konovalov, V.G. (1997)."Automated system of runoff forecasting for the Amudarya River basin"(PDF).Destructive Water: Water-Caused Natural Disasters, their Abatement and Control. International Association of Hydrological Sciences.Archived(PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09. Retrieved2010-02-09.
^See for exampleCan Russia invade India? by Henry Bathurst Hanna, 1895, (Google eBook), orThe Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush, Sir George Scott Robertson, Illustrated by Arthur David McCormick, Lawrence & Bullen, Limited, 1896, (Google eBook)
^Taliban and Talibanism in Historical Perspective, M Nazif Shahrani, chapter 4 ofThe Taliban And The Crisis of Afghanistan, 2008 Harvard Univ Press, edited by Robert D Crews and Amin Tarzi
Gordon, T. E. 1876.The Roof of the World: Being the Narrative of a Journey over the high plateau of Tibet to the Russian Frontier and the Oxus sources on Pamir. Edinburgh. Edmonston and Douglas. Reprint by Ch'eng Wen Publishing Company. Taipei. 1971.
Wood, John, 1872.A Journey to the Source of the River Oxus. With an essay on the Geography of the Valley of the Oxus by Colonel Henry Yule. London: John Murray.
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