ANTH 378

Richard James

ANTH378

Prof Lowe

Term Paper

Tarim Basin

With a finite number of natural resources available to the organisms living on Earth and an ever increasing human population competing for those resources, sustainability and resilience are necessary concepts humanity must adopt in order to preserve those natural resources for future generations. As the human population of the planet continues to rise, more and more social-ecological systems are at risk of changing to undesirable regimes due to over consumption of natural resources. Sustainability means consumption of those natural resources does not adversely affect social-ecological systems, thereby compromising the needs of future generations. Resilience is the ability of those social-ecological systems to resist a shock which could transition them into an undesirable regime, which could further compromise their ability to meet our needs. Together, sustainability and resilience are the means by which social-ecological systems adapt to changes, either through shock, or some gradual disruption, and maintain their function and structure. Sustainability and resilience, in relation to social-ecological systems, provide the best chance for maintaining and sustaining human civilization into the foreseeable future, and preserving the ecological diversity the planet needs in order for us to survive.

The Tarim Basin, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in Northwestern China, has an arid continental climate and is home to the Tarim River and China’s largest desert, the Taklimakan Desert. The Tarim River Basin is fed from thousands of glaciers from both the Kunlun mountains to the south and the Tian Shan mountains to the north, which has given the Tarim Basin the distinction of being the "Water Tower" of Central Asia. However, due to stresses from agriculture, deforestation, dams, cities and climate change, the Tarim Basin experiences extremely high water stress. With 95% of the water consumption from the basin being used for agriculture, supplying nearly a third of all cotton produced in China (cwrrr,org, 2017a), human interventions have had tremendous negative impacts on the social-ecological systems comprising the basin. Local flora and fauna, which include wetlands, wetland grasses, desert poplar forests, camels, migratory birds and deer, are all adversely affected by human activities. The Tarim Basin exemplifies the importance of implementing sustainability and resilience concepts to address challenges brought on by water scarcity, climate change and human activities.

The theories and concepts for analyzing the Tarim Basin social-ecosystem and how its water use is unsustainable includes the identification of the key components of the system and how they interrelate, the identification of disturbances from natural occurrences and human activities, and how these components interact and contribute to the social-ecosystems functionality. Through this analysis, sustainability and resilience concepts will be explored, and will require identifying thresholds, costs, social changes and policies needed to ensure the socio-ecosystem maintains its functionality without further damaging the area’s natural systems. Ultimately, the purpose is preventing significant long term decline in water resources for the area's ecosystems, ensuring water availability for the resident human populations, and ensuring economic stability for those dependent on the industries in the Tarim Basin.

With the diversion of water resources from the Tarim, Aksu and Yarkant rivers for agriculture being the key disruptor to the ecosystems in the Tarim Basin, the approach involves identifying the adaptive cycles of the desert poplar forests and wetland, and how the health of these ecosystems is, in turn, important in sustaining the ecological equilibrium of the Tarim river. It includes understanding disturbances to the ecosystems from other human interventions, such as climate change, cities, tourism and petroleum extraction and how those systems, combined with agricultural systems, affect the health of animal populations native to the area. Understanding the effects from natural disturbances, such as flooding and drought, on the social systems is next. Furthermore, it involves analyzing the impacts of resilience and any required changes to water diversion on the cotton agricultural systems, and how the cotton industry can adapt through conservation, technological improvements and policy changes. 

The key components of the Tarim Basin social-ecosystem are the Tarim, Aksu and Yarkant rivers, the Lop Nur region at the end of the Tarim river, the desert poplar forests, wetlands, wetland grasses, wildlife, towns and cities, and cotton and petroleum-extraction industries in the region (cwrrr.org, 2017a). The yearly glacial melt from the Tienshan, Pamir and Kunlun mountains surrounding the basin, feed the rivers, thereby supporting the health of the desert poplar forests and wetlands, the wildlife in which they depend, and it provides water for the human populations which also support their cotton and petroleum extraction industries. With climate change already causing glacial retreat and reducing glacial runoff from which the rivers depend, increases in population and agricultural production all create stresses which combine to threaten the resilience of the Tarim Basin, thereby threatening negative and permanent ecological regime change in more and more areas along the rivers. 

The primary use of water in the Tarim Basin is the cotton agriculture industry, with it consuming nearly ninety five percent of the water resources through dams and water diversion. This industry employs millions of people, provides nearly a third of all cotton produced in China, and accounts for nearly twelve percent of the world’s supply of cotton (cwrrr.org, 2017a). Human population growth from 1960 to 2016, from approximately 6.8 million to over 24 million, mainly from government encouraged human migration to the area, has accounted for these booms in cotton agricultural production, along with increases in petroleum extraction industries and miscellaneous other mining and manufacturing industries throughout the basin (water-ca.org, 2017). The flow of the Tarim, Aksu and Yarkant rivers provides water for these industries and, at the current rate of consumption, is unsustainable as these disturbances are causing the rivers to slowly dry up, causing desertification and severe salinization to the furthest reaches of the rivers, such as the Lop Nur region (oneearth.org, 2022). 

Natural disturbances from the yearly floods of the Yarkant river cause significant risks to the 433,333 hectares of cotton plantations along its river banks and resulted in large dam projects, such as the Aratax dam project, to tame its turbulent waters and mitigate damage to the fields (xinhuanet.com, 2019). However, with the dams and water diversion methodologies to support the complex irrigation systems and to mitigate damage to the cotton plantations from flooding, it constitutes the main human disturbance to the area's social-ecological system. This human caused drought disturbance, being a case of poor resource management through command and control (Walker, Salt 90), is failing to account for the effects of the scale in which flood management has on the long term health of the ecological system. With the ecological areas at the ends of the river systems in Lop Nur drying up, combined with timber harvesting and converting the lands into agriculture, the resilience to drought and desertification provided by the desert poplar forests and surrounding wetlands is adversely affected, disrupting their natural adaptive cycles of rapid growth, conservation, release and reorganization (Walker, Salt, 74).

The Tarim Basin’s natural adaptive cycle, with it being situated within a highly arid desert region, is dependent on the annual flooding of its rivers. This cycle consists of the shock of floodwaters inundating the region and removing existing vegetation, creating space for the rapid growth and conservation phases by depositing sediments into the arid soils and supporting temporary wetland habitats for wildlife such as migratory birds, camels, fish and deer (oneearth.org, 2022). Flooding replenishes groundwater supplies and allows surrounding desert poplar forests and wetland grasses to mature which, in relation to resilience, are the basin from which the ball rests (Walker, Salt 53) due to their complex root systems for absorbing moisture and for staving off drought and desertification. Annual flooding contributes to the region’s release phase, thus opening the region to the possibility of reorganization. Unfortunately, due to the arid climate of the Tarim Basin and its rivers dependency on glacial runoff, the depth of its resilience-basin is shallow, or the natural adaptive cycle could be classified as lacking resilience, as it takes very little disturbance to cause undesirable regime change. With areas such as Lop Nur and more areas every year from the disturbances from water diversion, large areas of the Tarim Basin have crossed the threshold into an alternate basin of attraction (desert) as the linkages in the conservation phase (flooding) are broken due to drought.

With the disturbances to the region’s natural adaptive cycle and the resulting threats to the availability of water for the social-ecological systems, the Chinese government has instituted a multitude of water conservation measures in the region. The first involves the formation of The Tarim River Basin Bureau in 1991, to coordinate and manage efforts of ecological protection for the basin (cwrrr.org 2017a). The second involves the Chinese government instituting water conservation standards, combined with investments (3.72 billion RMB in 2017) in irrigation efficiency systems across large and medium scale irrigation zones, and billions more planned into the future (cwrrr.org, 2017a). Third, promoting water saving with water tariff price hikes starting in 2016 (cwrrr.org, 2017a). Lastly, the Chinese government hopes to implement additional water management mechanisms such as water trading rights and River Chief systems to further balance ecological needs with economic development (cwrrr.org, 2017b). The instituting of River Chief systems introduces a social element to the management of the river systems, as they represent the needs of the rivers and, under their jurisdiction, can identify problems such as pollution, overuse and accountability issues, and use their power to enforce regulations to ensure enough water for both human and natural systems (cwrrr.org, 2017b). 

With water scarcity being a daily reality for any human and natural system existing within the Tarim Basin, and with the social-ecological system lacking resilience to drought and flooding, the Chinese government must discontinue their command and control interventions. From consequences to the environment, including the loss of habitat resulting in declines in animal populations, to the growing salt-encrusted dry riverbeds which started in the Lop Nur region, these instances exemplify the Chinese government’s history of interventions in the region causing significant ecological harm. 

The Tarim Basin is a lesson on sustainability and resilience because water scarcity will forever remain a constant threat to the social-ecological systems of agriculture, human settlements, industries, desert poplar forests, wetlands and wildlife in the region. With climate change causing glacial retreat and reducing water levels in the Tarim, Aksu and Yarkant rivers, combined with human disturbances of damming and diversion for the region’s cotton agricultural industries, these have all disrupted the natural adaptive cycles of the region’s ecosystems, resulting in the Chinese government’s reevaluation of water resource management in the region (Fu, 2021). With significant investments in conservation technologies, combined with instituting both water and land resource management practices, the Chinese government’s aim has been to improve the region’s ability to respond to flooding and drought disturbances, and to balance the needs of all stakeholders in the social-ecological system, from human populations, to cotton industries, to wildlife, and to the ecosystems from which they all depend (Fu, 2021). 

The Chinese government has recognized the importance of long term water resource availability to the social-ecological systems within the Tarim Basin, and has begun to address their command and control failures by instituting sweeping changes to how human systems interact with the natural systems. Starting with the formation of the Tarim River Basin Bureau in 1991, and continuing with the institution of conservation standards, along with significant investments in irrigation efficiency, water tariff price hikes, implementing water trading rights and River Chief systems for advocacy and accountability, they have recognized water resource governance measures as a key component needed to achieve their management goals. However, challenges with implementing the River Chief systems stem from the price of environmental protections exceeding local government budgets, and may be a barrier to their successful implementation (Wang, 2021). Amendments to the policy to account for these local government budget pitfalls would remediate the situation. Regardless, the hope is these measures, combined with land resource governance, involving ecosystem restoration and preservation, protecting desert poplar forest and wetland habitats for endangered species, will ensure resilience to desertification by maintaining biodiversity in the region.

Water scarcity is a constant threat to social-ecological systems within the Tarim Basin, and serves as an example of how overuse of a resource can reduce the resilience of an ecosystem, resulting in undesirable regime change. By overusing the water resources in the region largely for the cotton industry, causing river depletion, the Lop Nur region has already experienced severe salinization and desertification, along with the destruction of many desert poplar and wetland ecosystems. This trend is expected to continue in the region, not only from human activities, but from glacial retreat caused by climate change. However, if the Chinese government is successful in shifting from command and control to the institution of water and land resource governance measures, combined with conservation measures and additional investments in conservation technologies, and these actions result in alleviating the stress on the river systems, the Tarim Basin may end up being a case of a social-ecological system balancing the needs of all stakeholders. Time will tell.

Sources

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Cajwr. “Evapotranspiration of Riparian Ecosystems and Irrigated Cotton Agriculture at the Middle Reaches of the Tarim River, Xinjiang, China” China Agricultural Journal of Water Resources, 13 Dec. 2017, water-ca.org/article/evapotranspiration-of-riparian-ecosystems-and-irrigated-cotton-agriculture-at-the-middle-reaches-of-the-tarim-river-xinjiang-china.

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Xinhuanet. “Hydro Dam Begins Impoundment to Tame Yarkant River in Xinjiang” Xinhuanet, 20 Nov. 2019, www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-11/20/c_138569811.htm.

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Fu, Aihong, et al. “The Effects of Ecological Rehabilitation Projects on the Resilience of an Extremely Drought-prone Desert Riparian Forest Ecosystem in the Tarim River Basin, Xinjiang, China.” Scientific Reports, vol. 11, no. 1, Sept. 2021, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-96742-5.

Wang, Bo, et al. “River Chief System: An Institutional Analysis to Address Watershed Governance in China.” Water Policy, vol. 23, no. 6, Oct. 2021, pp. 1435–1444. https://doi.org/10.2166/wp.2021.113.