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Historical stages of the AALS formation

This section depicts the main historical stages of the Aydar-Arnasay lakes system formation proposed by the author and the main peculiarities of each stage examined in the archives. The stages of the AALS historical development are as follows:

• 
  the 1920s- 1960 (1963): the Aydar-Arnasay solonchak;
  
• 
  1960 (1963)-1969: the Chardara reservoir construction (Gorelkin and Nikitin 1976);
  
• 
  1969-1970: inundation of the Aydar-Arnasay depression (Muminov and Poplavskiy 2006);
  
• 
  1970-1991: the AALS as the lakes for residual water;
  
• 
  1991- Present (Ryabcev 2005).
  

1. Aydar-Arnasay solonchak (the 1920s – 1960(1963))

According to Gorelkin and Nikitin (1976), the first stage of the AALS formation is the period before the reclamation of the Golodnaya Steppe irrigation area in 1918-1920. In this period of time the area of the present-day Aydar-Arnasay lakes system was occupied by the Aydar-Arnasay depression with dried alkaline soils and wet salines.
Ivanov (1957) highlights that in the 1910s and 1920s the Tuzkan depression dried up on a regular annual basis, flooding during the spring period and shrinking by the fall period up to 10 km and served as a place for salt production. Later in the 1950s, reconstruction of the North Kirov irrigation channel and building the Central and South-Golodnostepninskiy irrigation channels resulted in extensive flooding of the Golodnaya Steppe areas and development of the cotton monoculture. Consequently, starting from the 1950s salt deposition and production was terminated due to increasing Tuzkan water recharge.

Figure 2 shows a historical map of Uzbekistan illustrating how the Aydar-Arnasay lakes looked in 1954. Particularly, the red circle demonstrates the location of the Aydar solonchak and the blue circle – the location of the future Chardara reservoir which would be completed in 1964, and green one – Golodnaya Steppe irrigation areas.



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Figure 2. The Aydar-Arnasay lakes system in 1954 (The Uzbek Soviet Encyclopedia, volume 14, 1971-1980)
It should be emphasized that beginning of the Golodnaya Steppe reclamation was identified by the author as the main precondition of the lakes system development and as the first historical stage. Namely, collector-drainage water from the Golodnaya Steppe irrigation areas considerably contributed to the lakes’ evolution. This will be accurately seen in the consequent stage of the AALS development. The early sixties were proposed by the author as the period of termination of the first stage mainly because of construction of water facilities,
i.e. Chardara reservoir, which was erected in 1963.

2.