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Assessment of ecosystem services of the wetlands in the Ili River Delta, Kazakhstan

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Abstract

Central Asia is the region with the worldwide highest number of endorheic or closed river basins. Many of those river basins are transboundary ones. Following the desiccation of the Aral Sea, Lake Balkhash has become the largest lake of Central Asia with an area of 17,000 km2. The Ili Delta, in total 8000 km2 large, is the largest natural delta and wetland complex of Central Asia. Seventy percent of the Ili River’s runoff is generated in China. So, the Ili Delta is a showcase for a wetland complex lying downstream in a transboundary river basin. The objective of this paper is to assess the area and distribution of the wetlands and Phragmites australis-dominated reed vegetation as major natural ecosystems in the Ili Delta and their associated ecosystem services. An analysis of Rapid Eye satellite images revealed that there are wetlands and reed vegetation on a total area of 211,778 ha in the Ili Delta. A total of 85,400 ha are submerged reed beds with a total estimated biomass of 869,097 t. P. australis is used as fodder and raw material. Currently, there are about 100,000 livestock grazing in the delta. The submerged reed is planned to be used by a factory for chipboards and a paper factory. The wetlands are important spawning grounds for fish of Lake Balkhash. In 2014, almost 10,000 tourists visited the delta. Most of all tourists come from Almaty, followed by Russia, other regions of Kazakhstan, and Europe (outside Russia).

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Acknowledgements

Field studies in 2013 were funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) within the project Central Asian Biodiversity Network (CABNET). All other field studies were funded by the Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) within the project Ecosystem conservation and sustainable land use in the Ili-Delta, Balkhash Lake, Kazakhstan, under decreasing water resources. We thank both institutions for enabling those field studies. Rapid Eye satellite images were kindly provided from Blackbridge.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. World Agroforestry Centre, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

    Niels Thevs

  2. University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

    Niels Thevs, Volker Beckmann, Altyn Akimalieva, Jan Felix Köbbing & Telsche Piechottka

  3. Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan

    Sabir Nurtazin, Ruslan Salmurzauli & Azim Baibagysov

  4. Michael-Succow-Foundation, Greifswald, Germany

    Sophie Hirschelmann

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  1. Niels Thevs
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Correspondence to Niels Thevs or Volker Beckmann.

Additional information

This article is part of a Topical Collection in Environmental Earth Sciences on “Water in Central Asia”, guest edited by Daniel Karthe, Iskandar Abdullaev, Bazartseren Boldgiv, Dietrich Borchardt, Sergey Chalov, Jerker Jarsjo¨, Lanhai Li and Jeff Nittrouer.

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Thevs, N., Beckmann, V., Akimalieva, A. et al. Assessment of ecosystem services of the wetlands in the Ili River Delta, Kazakhstan. Environ Earth Sci 76, 30 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-016-6346-2

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