Amudarya delta

Rogov MM (1957) Hydrology of the Amudarya delta. Gidrometeoizdat, Leningrad, p 255 (in Russian)... 

The eastern coast is low and sandy, with small sinuous inlets. The southern coast is of complicated stmcture, graded sandy segments alternating with protruding fans of individual deltaic channels in the Amudarya delta. 

Not long ago water transport was the only means of cargo transit to the Amudarya delta and from this area to the railroad. In spite of construction of the new railroad Chardjou-Nukus-Kungrad water transport still remained most important for this region. 

In the north die Amudarya delta was connected with the railroad Orenburg-Tashkent via the Aral Sea shipping line from the city of Aralsk to the city of Muinak (to be precise, to the village of Uch-Sai located on the Tokmak-Ata Island, 18 km northward of Muinak). The disadvantage of this line was the lack of a suitable and well-equipped port in the delta that would ensure quick unloading and loading of ships. 

The construction of the railroad from Chardjou to Nukus running along the left bank of the Amudarya River and further on to Kungrad improved considerably transport communication between the delta cities and administrative and industrial centers of the Republics of Central Asia. The proposed extension of this railroad in the northwesterly directiOTi through Ustyurt and as far as railroad station Makat would connect cities in the Amudarya delta directly with the main railroads of the European USSR. 

Keywords Amudarya, Delta, River channel flow losses. River flow, Syrdarya, Water consumption... 

The mean values of annual inflow to the summit of the Amudarya delta based oti hydrologic observations of gauging stations in v. Qiatli (1931-1973), Kyzildjar (1959-1987), and Samambay (1974—1996) for particular time periods are presented in Table 8. 

Fig. 3 The Amudarya delta in the beginning of the 1960s (a) and in 1974 (b). By-channels 1 Kipchakdarya 2 Akdarya 3 Kazakhdarya 4 Urdabai, canals 5 named by Lenin 6 Kyzketken 7 Raushan 8 the Sudochie Lake, Bays 9 Adzhibai 10 Muinak 11 Sarbas 12 Abbas 13 Dzhaltybas 14 the Muinak Peninsular, settlements 15 Nukus 16 Kungrad 17 Muinak 18 The Takhiatash...

From the data of Table 8 it appears that after 1960 the volume of inflow decreased considerably and in the decade 1981-1990 made up 16.6 km per year in the summit of the Amudarya delta and 2.3 km per year in the Syrdaiya delta summit. The average value for the last 36 years was 2.3-times smaller than that in 1932-1960. 

Rogov MM, Khodkin SS, Revina SK (1968) Hydrology of the Amudarya Delta Region. Trudy GODM 94 268 in Russian... 

Notice that, as distinct from the situation with overflow of waters from reservoirs in the Amudarya delta into the Aral observed oti 13 October 2005 (Fig. 13), the opposite process occurred two weeks before under a north-easterly wind - cold waters from the Aral flowed into artificial reservoirs (unfortunately, this is not seen in the black and white figures (Figs. 11b and c), but is easily seen in the color version). 

Fig. 13 Water overflow from reservoirs in the regional part of Amudarya delta in MODIS/Terra images for 22 September 2004 left) and 13 October 2005 right)...

Ice decay began at the end of February-beginning of March. Usually the southern and south-eastern parts become ice-free at the end of March and the northern part - in mid-April, and 1 month later the whole Aral Sea was ice-free. On Fig. 2c, we see that in April 1986 (winter 1985/1986 was average by severity) the western and central parts of the sea are ice-free, except for some broken ice that is still observed near Amudarya delta, Vozrozhdeniya island, and a region near the Berg Strait. In Tushybas bay the ice cover has just started to break-up and the Northern Aral is still completely ice-covered. In severe winters, however, ice could reside until the end of April or even the beginning of May. 

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