Essentials of Endorheic Basins and Lakes: A Review in the Context of Current and Future Water Resource Management and Mitigation Activities in Central Asia

Abstract

Abstract:Endorheic basins (i.e., land-locked drainage networks) and their lakes can be highly sensitive to variations in climate and adverse anthropogenic activities, such as overexploitation of water resources. In this review paper, we provide a brief overview of one major endorheic basin on each continent, plus a number of endorheic basins in Central Asia (CA), a region where a large proportion of the land area is within this type of basin. We summarize the effects of (changing) climate drivers and land surface-atmosphere feedbacks on the water balance. For the CA region, we also discuss key anthropogenic activities, related water management approaches and their complex relationship with political and policy issues. In CA a substantial increase in irrigated agriculture coupled with negative climate change impacts have disrupted the fragile water balance for many endorheic basins and their lakes. Transboundary integrated land and water management approaches must be developed to facilitate adequate climate change adaptation and possible mitigation of the adverse anthropogenic influence on endorheic basins in CA. Suitable climate adaptation, mitigation and efficient natural resource management technologies and methods are available, and are developing fast. A number of these are discussed in the paper, but these technologies alone are not sufficient to address pressing water resource issues in CA. Food-water-energy nexus analyses demonstrate that transboundary endorheic basin management requires transformational changes with involvement of all key stakeholders. Regional programs, supported by local governments and international donors, which incorporate advanced adaptation technologies, water resource research and management capacity development, are essential for successful climate change adaptation efforts in CA. However, there is a need for an accelerated uptake of such programs, with an emphasis on unification of approaches, as the pressures resulting from climate change and aggravated by human mismanagement of natural water resources leave very little time for hesitation.

The end of the Great Khersonian Drying of Eurasia: Magnetostratigraphic dating of the Maeotian transgression in the Eastern Paratethys

“…Half of the endorheic surface on the planet and most of the world's terminal lakes are presently located in Central Eurasia, where they prove to be excellent recorders of hydrological changes (e.g., Yapiyev et al, 2017). The Caspian Sea, world's largest endorheic lake has exhibited sealevel variations of~4 m in the last 100 years, while the Aral Lake has lost 90% of its size in the last 50 years (Firoozfar, Bromhead, Dykes, & Neshaei, 2012;Kroonenberg, Badyukova, Storms, Ignatov, & Kasimov, 2000;Kroonenberg, Rusakov, & Svitoch, 1997).…”

In Water‐Limited Landscapes, an Anthropocene Exchange: Trading Lakes for Irrigated Agriculture

“…Our analysis of the GLWD and the GSW data shows that of total global lake area shrinkage, over 60% of this lost lake area occurred in water‐limited terminal lakes within endorheic basins (Figure 1B), which are particularly sensitive to overexploitation (Yapiyev et al, 2017). Generally, the 1:1‐line separates between those inland waters whose shrinkage has been attributed to irrigated agriculture (i.e., below the line) versus those whose shrinkage has been attributed to other drivers.…”

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“…Lake Trasimeno is characterised by some peculiar features that make it particularly useful for the study of hydrologic and chemical variations related to climate change: (i) TDS is relatively low compared to other terminal basins [62] and lake water is undersaturated with respect to chlorides and sulfate minerals. As a consequence, the concentrations of dissolved ions, with the exception of calcium that is controlled by calcite precipitation, are not limited by the precipitation of solid phases and can be directly related to the changes of the hydrologic regime; (ii) its relatively shallow depth allows the complete mixing of lake water, inhibiting both chemical and thermal stratification.…”