Travel to Kazakhstan rivers - Karatal river.
Karatal is a river in the Almaty region of Kazakhstan. Before the confluence of the river, Ushtarak was once called Nurtayozek.
Hydrography Karatal river.
Length 390 km, basin area 19.1 thousand km². It is formed at the confluence of three rivers called Tekelinka, Chazha and Kora. The initial 160 km is mountainous, from the Dzhungar Alatau, then flows through the sandy Saryesik-Atyrau desert, the river forms an extensive delta with an area of 860 km² for the last 40 kilometers before flowing into Balkhash. In the middle reaches in the past, the high-water channel of Karatal was unstable due to the easy erosion of sandy-clay soils. The main food is glacial and snowy. The Biže River, being the last and longest tributary of Karatal, flows into it from the left. Other tributaries are the Kara, Terekty, Laba, Balykty, Mokur and the most watery Koksu. The river, like its tributaries, is mudflow hazardous, especially after heavy rains. According to long-term observations, the average annual water flow of the river near the city of Ushtobe is 66.7 m³ / s, or 2.1 km³ / year. It freezes in December, opens in March. Karatal is the second largest inflow of water and economically important tributary of Lake Balkhash after the Ili River, providing about 20% of the river flow into the lake and about 10-12% of its annual volume.
Hydrological Karatal river.
High water is observed in May-August. With the beginning of the September cooling, the water content of Karatal begins to decrease sharply, and in October, fords are formed in many places. The water in Karatal is clean, the bottom is mostly rocky, composed of hardened mountain destruction products. At the beginning of the 20th century, Karatal flowed into Lake Balkhash with 5 mouths. In the 19th century there were only 2 such channels: then the main channel of Karatal flowed into the lake not far from the sandy hillocks of Ak-Tyube; the smaller sleeve reached Balkhash through lake. Kalgan-Kul. Now this previously small sleeve has become the main channel of Karatal, which has no fords at all; the same sleeve is now practically dry in many places. As a result, the river began to flow into Balkhash in virtually one channel. This change was due to the fact that earlier nomadic Kazakhs of the Great Horde began to engage in vegetable growing and blocked the main channel so that it would be more convenient for them to bring water into irrigation ditches for irrigation of fields.
Description Karatal river.
By its size, the Karatal River takes the second place after the Ili River in the territory of Semirechye. Translated from the Kazakh language, the river is translated as "Black Willow". From the west, the Koksu river flows into the Karatal river. Pelicans, several species of ducks, herons and others live on the territory of the river.
Economic Importance in a Historical Context Karatal river.
The mouths of all 5 channels of the Karatal delta are surrounded by wet reeds and are not accessible from land. The Karatala delta at the beginning of the 20th century was very extensive (up to 250 km².), But only half of this land was suitable for cultivation; another part of it was and remains occupied by reeds or sands. There are few meadow sites along the lower reaches of the river; pasture is made up of the same reeds and sedge. On the right side of the old Karatal, 20 km above the mouth, between the sand hillocks are salt lakes called Karatygen, from which the Kazakhs used to extract tens of thousands of pounds of salt annually. Salt from this region was considered the best in the whole Semirechye. In the Karatal basin, Kazakhs of the Great Horde, the Jalaira tribe, previously roamed. At the mouth, nomadic and semi-nomadic Kazakhs in small numbers remained nomadic in the summer, leaving with them sheep and cattle. Horses and camels, as a rule, were stolen in mountain pastures in the summer to save them from gadflies, mosquitoes and other nests.
Modern economic value Karatal river.
On the river are the cities of Taldy-Kurgan, Tekeli and Ushtobe. On the river there is a cascade of small hydroelectric power stations. River water is actively used for large-scale irrigation and other households. needs since the middle of the 20th century, because of which the water content of the main channel of Karatal decreased with an increase in the concentration of various kinds of chemical elements and pesticides. There is a gradual drying up of the delta, as well as a drop in the level of Lake Balkhash with all the environmental problems arising from this.
