Geography of Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia, bordering the Caspian Sea to the west, Iran and Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the north-east, and Kazakhstan to the north-west.
Terrain of Turkmenistan consists of a flat-to-rolling sandy desert, the Karakum, with its dunes slowly rising to the south; by the time they reach the border with Iran, they become the mountains known as the Kopet Dag.
[1] Turkmenistan's mountains include 600 km (370 mi) of the northern reaches of the Kopet Dag Range, which it shares with Iran.
[1] Shifting winds create desert mountains that range from two to twenty meters (5 to 65 ft) in height and may be several kilometers in length.
[1] Chains of such structures are common, as are steep elevations and smooth, concrete-like clay deposits formed by the rapid evaporation of flood waters in the same area for a number of years.
[1] Large marshy salt flats, formed by capillary action in the soil, exist in many depressions, including the Garaşor, which occupies 1,500 square kilometers (580 sq mi) in the northwest.
[1] Contamination of soil and groundwater with agricultural chemicals, pesticides; salination, water-saturation of soil due to poor irrigation methods; Caspian Sea pollution; diversion of a large share of the flow of the Amu Darya into irrigation contributes to that river's inability to replenish the Aral Sea; desertification According to estimates, as a result of desertification processes and pollution, biological productivity of the ecological systems in Turkmenistan has declined by 30% to 50% in recent decades.
[1] The Karakum and Kyzyl Kum deserts are expanding at a rate surpassed on a planetary scale only by the desertification process in the Sahara and Sahel regions of Africa.
[1] The type of desertification caused by year-round pasturing of cattle has been termed the most devastating in Central Asia, with the gravest situations in Turkmenistan and the Kazakh steppe along the eastern and northern coasts of the Caspian Sea.
[1] Wind erosion and desertification also are severe in settled areas along the Garagum Canal; planted windbreaks have died because of soil water-saturation and / or salinization.
[1] In turn, the Aral Sea's desiccation, which had shrunk that body of water by an estimated 59,000 square kilometers (23,000 sq mi) by 1994, profoundly affects economic productivity and the health of the population of the republic.
[1] Besides the cost of ameliorating damaged areas and the loss of at least part of the initial investment in them, salinization and chemicalization of land have reduced agricultural productivity in Central Asia by an estimated 20–25%.
[1] Furthermore, most fertilizers are so poorly applied that experts have estimated that only 15–40% of the chemicals can be absorbed by cotton plants, while the remainder washes into the soil, and subsequently into the groundwater.
[1] For example, local herdsmen, unaware of the danger of DDT, have reportedly mixed the pesticide with water and applied it to their faces to keep away mosquitoes.
(U.S. Department of State)
