the South Ukraine and north Crimea, and the Volga is being converted into a series of 

 lakes up to 370 miles long, A canal of 375 miles is being made to carry a flow equal 

 to that of the Don for the irrigation of an area of semi-desert equal to England in area, 

 between the Volga and the Ural rivers. Besides canals, 44,000 water basins are being 

 created, and hydro- electric power from new stations (with an aggregate capacity of four 

 and a quarter million Tcilowatts ) will pump water on to the land and drive agricultural 

 machinery such as tractors, etc. The European schemes affecting the steppe will be 

 completed by 1956, and the desert irrigation is to be effective by 1957. 



The deserts of central Asia are partly man made, but the whole region has been 

 drying up for thousands of years, although the cutting down of trees has worsened con- 

 ditions. In the 3rd- 4th millenium BC there were towns 12 miles across in the present 

 desert areas, and archaeological evidence shows the existence of past irrigation sys- 

 tems. At one time a branch of the Amu Darya river flowed across Turkmenia to the 

 Caspian sea. The fertility of much of the desert is seen in the small scale irrigated 

 areas of Turkmenia, and in the large oases, such as Tashkent, which supports a popu- 

 lation of 1,300,000. 



Work has now begun on the building of a dam across the Amu Darya near its delta 

 to the Aral sea for the purpose of deflecting about 47% of its flow into a 683 mile canal 

 across Turkmenia to Krasnovodsk on the Caspian Sea. Another 746 miles of branch 

 canals will irrigate about three and a half million acres (5,000 square miles) of desert. 

 The middle section of the canal which will use the dried up bed of the Uzboi river, now 

 many feet thick in salt, will flood about 17 million acres (27,000 square miles) for 

 periods of from one to three months, so providing increased pasture for horses, cattle 

 and karakul sheep. The average daily flow on the canal will be about 6,500 million 

 gallons (4 times that of the Thames), but at times will be double this figure. All the 

 water at present will be used for irrigation, and none will pass on to the Caspian Sea. 

 A project of this magnitude has not been attempted anywhere in the world. 



The associated scientific work serves two purposes. Firstly there is the prelimi- 

 nary work connected with the actual construction and maintenance of such a desert 

 canal, and secondly much work is in progress concerning the maximum productivity of 

 the land to be irrigated. 



The preliminary work has been in progress on a considerable scale. By 1951 a 

 scientific base was in working order in the Kara Kalpak, with a newly built railway 

 line, and a feed canal to supply water for the workers, for hydraulic machinery and for 

 the local growing of crops. Three hundred scientists were at work there in the summer 

 of 1951 and their number had increased to 500 by the spring of 1952. In addition there 

 are many field parties, and a large scale photo survey has already been made from the 

 air. 



The subsoil waters in the Kara-Kum desert are of greater importance than the sur- 

 face waters, and they are being investigated by parties of geologists, each numbering 

 about a dozen, and equipped with drilling apparatus. Underground fresh water streams 

 can in places be deflected to the surface, and in fact now wat^er the town of Krasnovodsk. 

 The salinity and rates of seepage of subsoil waters is being determined, as saline water 



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