Impact of the Aral sea syndrome-The Aralkum as a man-made dust source

Christian Opp, Michael Groll, Oleg Semenov, Natalya Vereshagina, Asia Khamzina

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Ground based dust monitoring is an important tool for the long-term monitoring of aeolian sediment transport in Central Asia as it provides valuable insights into the spatial and temporal dynamics of dust deposition as well as grants access to the transported material for further analyses. Between 2006 and 2012 such a monitoring was carried out in the Turan lowland to analyze the effects of the newly formed Aralkum. The detected spatial and temporal dust deposition variability was significant and encourages further studies. The dust deposition increased over time, which correlates with a decreasing trend in precipitation, increasing wind speeds and a shift towards northern winds. More than 50% of all dust samples collected exceed the health based deposition threshold and the most intense dust storm events reached ground level deposition rates of up to 150 g/m2 per hour. This study showed the impact of the Aralkum, but also that the Kyzylkum is a far more active dust source. With regard to climate change and an increasing aridity in the region it can be expected that the aeolian dust transport will continue to increase, making a wide-spread monitoring program even more important.

Original languageEnglish
Article number03003
JournalE3S Web of Conferences
Volume99
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019 Jun 18
Event2019 Central Asian DUst Conference, CADUC 2019 - Dushanbe, Tajikistan
Duration: 2019 Apr 82019 Apr 12

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Environmental Science(all)
  • Energy(all)
  • Earth and Planetary Sciences(all)

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