Abstract
Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay is a large (around 18,000 km2) and shallow (few meters deep) lagoon located east of the Caspian Sea. Its water surface was several meters to several dozens cm lower than in the Caspian Sea, so water flows from the Caspian Sea through a narrow strait into the bay, where it evaporates. Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world; its water salinity amounts to 270–300 g/l. Different kinds of salts available in this natural evaporative basin has been used commercially since at least the 1920s. In March 1980, in order to decelerate a continuous fall of the Caspian Sea level, which in 1977 was the lowest over the last 400 years (−29 m), the Kara-Bogaz-Gol Strait was dammed. In response to this human intervention, the bay had already dried up completely by November 1983. In 1992, the dam was destroyed, and Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay had been filling up with the Caspian Sea water at a rate of about 1.7 m/year up to 1996 as observed by the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite altimetry mission. Since then, Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay level evolution with characteristic seasonal and interannual oscillations has been similar to that of the Caspian Sea. Physical and chemical evolution of the bay in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is traced in detail in the paper.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ammaniyazov KN, Fedin VP (1994) Kara-Bogaz-Gol—second birth. Ylym, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan (in Russian)
Apollov BA (1956) The Caspian Sea and its basin. Nauka, Moscow, Russia (in Russian)
Buynevich NA, Danilov VP, Lepeshkov IN (1992) The modern condition of a hydrochemical mode of Kara-Bogaz-Gol. Inorg Mater 2(6):1268
Dzens-Litovskii AI (1967) Kara-Bogaz-Gol. Nedra, Leningrad, Russia (in Russian)
Fedin VP (1983) The bay and its fate. Znanie, Moscow, Russia (in Russian)
Ferronskii VI, Polyakov VA, Brezgunov VS, Vlasova LS, Karpychev YA, Bobkov AF, Romaniovskii VV, Johnson T, Ricketts D, Rasmussen K (2003) Variations in the hydrological regime of Kara-Bogaz-Gol Gulf, Lake Issyk-Kul, and the Aral Sea assessed based on data of bottom sediment studies. Water Resour 30(3):252
Frolov AV (2003) Modelling of multiyear oscillations of the Caspian Sea level: theory and applications. GEOS, Moscow, Russia (in Russian)
Gabell MA (1963) The sea that spills into a desert. Sci Am 209:94
Giralt S, Julia R, Leroy S, Gasse F (2003) Cyclic water level oscillations of the Kara Bogaz Gol-Caspian Sea system. Earth Planet Sci Lett 212(1–2):225
Kosarev AN (1975) Hydrology of the Caspian and Aral seas. Mosk Gos Univ, Moscow, Russia (in Russian)
Kosarev AN, Kostianoy AG (2005a) Phenomenalism of Kara-Bogaz-Gol. Zemlya i Vselennaya (Earth and Universe) N 1:34–40 (in Russian)
Kosarev AN, Kostianoy AG (2005b) Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay. In: Kostianoy AG, Kosarev AN (eds) The Caspian Sea environment. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York
Kostianoy AG, Zavialov PO, Lebedev SA (2004) What do we know about dead, dying and endangered lakes and seas? In: Nihoul JCJ, Zavialov PO, Micklin PhP (eds) Dying and Dead Seas Climatic versus Anthropic Causes. Kluwer, Dordrecht, p 1
Lavrov DA (2000) Hydrological regime of Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay in conditions of free seawater supply. In: Khublaryan MG (ed) Ecological problems of the Caspian Sea. International scientific seminar on ecological problems of the Caspian Sea region. Moscow, Russia (in Russian)
Lebedev SA, Kostianoy AG (2005) Satellite altimetry of the Caspian Sea. Sea, Moscow, Russia (in Russian)
President of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Turkmenbashi National Enviromental Plan of Action (2002) Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
Terziev FS, Maksimova MP, Yablonskaya EA (eds) (1996) Hydrometeorology and hydrochemistry of the seas vol VI: The Caspian Sea, Ser.2: Hydrochemical conditions and oceanographic bases of the biological productivity formation. Hydrometeoizdat, St.Petersburg, Russia (in Russian)
Varushchenko AN, Lukyanova SA, Solovieva DG, Kosarev AN, Kurayev AV (2000) In: Lulla KP, Dessinov LV (eds) Dynamics earth environments. Remote sensing observations from Shuttle-Mir Missions. Wiley, New York, p 201
Vladimirtsev YuA, Kosarev AN, Kupche LV, Vinnikov GYu, Zhirnov VM (1974) In: Complex Investigations of the Caspian Sea. Moscow University, Moscow, p 112 (in Russian)
Zonn IS (2004) The Caspian encyclopedia. Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya, Moscow (in Russian)
Acknowledgments
This work was partially supported by the NATO Science for Peace Programme Project “Multi-disciplinary Analysis of the Caspian Sea Ecosystem” (MACE), the INTAS Project “Value Added Satellite Altimetry for Coastal Regions (ALTICORE)” (Contract No. 05-1000008-7927), and Russian Foundation for Basic Research Grant N 06-05-64871-a.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kosarev, A.N., Kostianoy, A.G. & Zonn, I.S. Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay: Physical and Chemical Evolution. Aquat Geochem 15, 223–236 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10498-008-9054-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10498-008-9054-z