Geography of Turkmenistan

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Dust storm over Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia, bordering the Caspian Sea to the west, Iran and Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the north-east, and Kazakhstan to the north-west. It is the southernmost republic of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the loose federation created at the end of 1991 by most of the post-Soviet states.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

The geographic coordinates are between 35°08' and 42°48' north latitude, 52°27' and 66°41' east longitude. Its longest border is with the Caspian Sea (Template:Convert).<ref name=":0" /> The other borders are with Iran (to the south, Template:Convert), Afghanistan (to the south, Template:Convert), Uzbekistan (to the north and east, Template:Convert) and Kazakhstan (to the north, Template:Convert).<ref name=":0" /> Turkmenistan is slightly larger than Cameroon in territory, occupying Template:Convert.<ref name=":0" /> By area, Turkmenistan ranks fourth among the former Soviet republics, after Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine.<ref name=":0" /> The country's greatest extent from west to east is Template:Convert, and its greatest north-to-south distance is Template:Convert.<ref name=":0" />

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File:Turkmenistan-2019-US-Dept-State-map.jpg

Political map of Turkmenistan (2019)
(U.S. Department of State)

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Physical featuresEdit

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File:Turkmenistan 1994 CIA map.jpg

Relief map of Turkmenistan (1994)

File:Turkmenistan Topography.png

Topography of Turkmenistan

Terrain of Turkmenistan consists of a flat-to-rolling sandy desert, the Karakum, with its dunes slowly rising to the south; by the time they reach the border with Iran, they become the mountains known as the Kopet Dag. The Caspian Sea washes the western shores of this mostly arid country.

Turkmenistan's average elevation is Template:Convert above sea level, with its highest point being Mount Aýrybaba (Template:Convert) in the Köýtendag Range of the Pamir-Alay chain in the south-east,<ref name="peaklist">"The Central Asian Republics: Ultra-Prominence Page". Peaklist.org. Retrieved 2014-05-26.</ref> and its lowest point being the Akjagaýa Depression in Sarygamysh Lake, close to Template:Convert below sea level (the actual water level in Sarygamysh Lake fluctuates widely from –110 m at its shallowest to –60 m (Template:Convert).<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Mount Arlan rises sharply above sea level in the Great Balkan Range in western Turkmenistan (Balkan Province), and has a topographical prominence only slightly shorter than its height.<ref name="peaklist" /> Nearly 80% of the republic lies within the Turan Depression, which slopes from south to north and from east to west.<ref name=":0" />

Turkmenistan's mountains include Template:Convert of the northern reaches of the Kopet Dag Range, which it shares with Iran.<ref name=":0" /> The Kopet Dag Range is a region characterized by foothills, dry and sandy slopes, mountain plateaus, and steep ravines; Mount Şahşah (Template:Convert), also known as Mount Rizeh, southwest of Ashgabat, is the highest elevation of the Kopet Dag Range in Turkmenistan.<ref name=":0" /> The Kopet Dag is undergoing tectonic transformation, meaning that the region is threatened by earthquakes such as the one that destroyed Ashgabat in 1948.<ref name=":0" /> The Krasnovodsk and Üstýurt plateaus are the prominent topographical features of northwestern Turkmenistan.<ref name=":0" />

A dominant feature of the republic's landscape is the Garagum Desert (also known as Karakum), which occupies about Template:Convert.<ref name=":0" /> Shifting winds create desert mountains that range from Template:Convert in height and may be several kilometers in length.<ref name=":0" /> Chains of such structures are common, as are steep elevations and smooth, concrete-like clay deposits formed by the rapid evaporation of flood waters in the same area for a number of years.<ref name=":0" /> Large marshy salt flats, formed by capillary action in the soil, exist in many depressions, including the Garaşor, which occupies Template:Convert in the northwest.<ref name=":0" /> The Sandykly Desert west of the Amu Darya river is the southernmost extremity of the Qizilqum Desert, most of which lies in Uzbekistan to the northeast.<ref name=":0" />

ClimateEdit

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File:Koppen-Geiger Map v2 TKM 1991–2020.svg

Turkmenistan map of Köppen climate classification zones

File:Water Stress, Top Countries (2020).svg

Turkmenistan is the tenth most water-stressed country in the world.

Turkmenistan has a cold desert climate that is severely continental.<ref name=":0" /> Summers are long (from May through September), hot, and dry, while winters generally are mild and dry, although occasionally cold and damp in the north.<ref name=":0" /> Most precipitation falls between January and May; precipitation is slight throughout the country, with annual averages ranging from Template:Convert in the Kopet Dag to Template:Convert in the northwest.<ref name=":0" /> The capital, Ashgabat, close to the Iranian border in south-central Turkmenistan, averages Template:Convert of rainfall annually.<ref name=":0" /> Average annual temperatures range from Template:Convert in Ashgabat to Template:Convert in Daşoguz, on the Uzbek border in north-central Turkmenistan.<ref name=":0" /> The almost constant winds are northerly, northeasterly, or westerly.<ref name=":0" />

On 28 July 1983, Repetek Biosphere State Reserve, south of Türkmenabat, recorded a temperature of Template:Convert, which is the highest temperature to have ever been recorded in Turkmenistan.<ref name=TurmenistanCCRepetek>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=TurkmenistanUNCCDRepetek>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

ExamplesEdit

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Hydrological conditionsEdit

Almost 80% of the territory of Turkmenistan lacks a constant source of surface water flow.<ref name=":0" /> Its main rivers are located only in the southern and eastern peripheries; a few smaller rivers on the northern slopes of the Kopetdag are diverted entirely to irrigation.<ref name=":0" /> The most important river is the Amu Darya, which has a total length of Template:Convert from its farthest tributary, making it the longest river in Central Asia.<ref name=":0" /> The Amu Darya flows across northeastern Turkmenistan, thence eastward to form the southern borders of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.<ref name=":0" /> Damming and irrigation uses of the Amu Darya have had severe environmental effects on the Aral Sea, into which the river flows.<ref name=":0" /> The river's average annual flow is Template:Convert.<ref name=":0" /> Other major rivers are the Tejen (Template:Convert); the Murgab (Template:Convert); and the Atrek (Template:Convert).<ref name=":0" />

Environmental issuesEdit

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BackgroundEdit

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, environmental regulation is largely unchanged in Turkmenistan.<ref name=":0" /> The new government created the Ministry of Natural Resources Use and Environmental Protection in July 1992, with departments responsible for environmental protection, protection of flora and fauna, forestry, hydrometeorology, and administrative planning.<ref name=":0" /> Like other CIS republics, Turkmenistan has established an Environmental Fund based on revenues collected from environmental fines, but the fines generally are too low to accumulate significant revenue.<ref name=":0" /> Thanks to the former Soviet system of game preserves and the efforts of the Society for Nature Conservation and the Academy of Sciences, flora and fauna receive some protection in the republic; however, "hard-currency hunts" by wealthy Western and Arab foreigners already are depleting animals on preserves.<ref name=":0" />

Current environmental issuesEdit

Contamination of soil and groundwater with agricultural chemicals, pesticides; salination, water-saturation of soil due to poor irrigation methods; Caspian Sea pollution; diversion of a large share of the flow of the Amu Darya into irrigation contributes to that river's inability to replenish the Aral Sea; desertification

International environmental agreementsEdit

Party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Hazardous Wastes, Ozone Layer Protection
Signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements

DesertificationEdit

According to estimates, as a result of desertification processes and pollution, biological productivity of the ecological systems in Turkmenistan has declined by 30% to 50% in recent decades.<ref name=":0" /> The Karakum and Kyzyl Kum deserts are expanding at a rate surpassed on a planetary scale only by the desertification process in the Sahara and Sahel regions of Africa.<ref name=":0" /> Between 8,000 and 10,000 km² of new desert now appears each year in Central Asia.<ref name=":0" />

The most irreparable type of desertification is the salinization process that forms marshy salt flats.<ref name=":0" /> A major factor that contributes to these conditions is inefficient use of water because of weak regulation and failure to charge for water that is used.<ref name=":0" /> Efficiency in application of water to the fields is low, but the main problem is leakage in main and secondary canals, especially Turkmenistan's main canal, the Karakum Canal.<ref name=":0" /> Nearly half of the canal's water seeps out into lakes and salt swamps along its path.<ref name=":0" /> Excessive irrigation brings salts to the surface, forming salt marshes that dry into unusable clay flats.<ref name=":0" /> In 1989 Turkmenistan's Institute for Desert Studies claimed that the area of such flats had reached Template:Convert.<ref name=":0" />

The type of desertification caused by year-round pasturing of cattle has been termed the most devastating in Central Asia, with the gravest situations in Turkmenistan and the Kazakh steppe along the eastern and northern coasts of the Caspian Sea.<ref name=":0" /> Wind erosion and desertification also are severe in settled areas along the Garagum Canal; planted windbreaks have died because of soil water-saturation and / or salinization.<ref name=":0" /> Other factors promoting desertification are the inadequacy of the collector-drainage system built in the 1950s and inappropriate application of chemicals.<ref name=":0" />

The Aral SeaEdit

Turkmenistan both contributes to and suffers from the consequences of the desiccation of the Aral Sea.<ref name=":0" /> Because of excessive irrigation, Turkmen agriculture contributes to the steady drawdown of sea levels.<ref name=":0" /> In turn, the Aral Sea's desiccation, which had shrunk that body of water by an estimated Template:Convert by 1994, profoundly affects economic productivity and the health of the population of the republic.<ref name=":0" /> Besides the cost of ameliorating damaged areas and the loss of at least part of the initial investment in them, salinization and chemicalization of land have reduced agricultural productivity in Central Asia by an estimated 20–25%.<ref name=":0" /> Poor drinking water is the main health risk posed by such environmental degradation.<ref name=":0" /> In Dashhowuz Province, which has suffered the greatest ecological damage from the Aral Sea's desiccation, bacteria levels in drinking water exceeded ten times the sanitary level; 70% of the population has experienced illnesses, many with hepatitis, and infant mortality is high.<ref name=":0" /> Experts have warned that inhabitants will have to evacuate the province by the end of the century unless a comprehensive cleanup program is undertaken.<ref name=":0" /> Turkmenistan has announced plans to clean up some of the Aral Sea fallout with financial support from the World Bank.<ref name=":0" />

Chemical pollutionEdit

The most productive cotton lands in Turkmenistan (the middle and lower Amu Darya and the Murgap oasis) receive as much as 250 kilograms of fertilizer per hectare (Template:Convert), compared with the average application of Template:Convert.<ref name=":0" /> Furthermore, most fertilizers are so poorly applied that experts have estimated that only 15–40% of the chemicals can be absorbed by cotton plants, while the remainder washes into the soil, and subsequently into the groundwater.<ref name=":0" /> Cotton also uses far more pesticides and defoliants than other crops, and application of these chemicals often is mishandled by farmers.<ref name=":0" /> For example, local herdsmen, unaware of the danger of DDT, have reportedly mixed the pesticide with water and applied it to their faces to keep away mosquitoes.<ref name=":0" /> In the late 1980s, a drive began in Central Asia to reduce agrochemical usage.<ref name=":0" /> In Turkmenistan the campaign reduced fertilizer use 30% between 1988 and 1989.<ref name=":0" /> In the early 1990s, the use of some pesticides and defoliants declined drastically because of the country's shortage of hard currency.<ref name=":0" />