Geography of Tajikistan
Mountainous terrain separates Tajikistan's two population centers, which are in the lowlands of the southern (Panj River) and northern (Fergana Valley) sections of the country.
[1] Especially in areas of intensive agricultural and industrial activity, the Soviet Union's natural resource utilization policies left independent Tajikistan with a legacy of environmental problems.
[1] The lower elevations of Tajikistan are divided into northern and southern regions by a complex of three mountain chains that constitute the westernmost extension of the massive Tian Shan system.
Running essentially parallel from east to west, the chains are the Turkestan, Zeravshan (Zarafshan), and Hisor (Gissar) mountains.
[3] The Fergana Valley, the most densely populated region in Central Asia irrigated by the Syr Darya in its upper course, spreads across the north-eastern arm of Uzbekistan and Northern Tajikistan.
Rivers bring rich soil deposits into the Fergana Valley from the surrounding mountains, creating a series of fertile oases that have long been prized for agriculture.
According to research conducted by the International Crisis Group, this is due to corruption and lack of political will; failure to solve this issue could lead to irreversible regional destabilization.
[3] Tajikistan's second largest water body is the Kayrakum Reservoir, a 44 km (27 mi) long artificial lake in the heart of the Fergana Valley, not far from the city of Khujand in Sughd Province.
The Fergana Valley and other lowlands are shielded by mountains from Arctic air masses, but temperatures in that region still drop below freezing for more than 100 days a year.
The 50 percent increase in cotton cultivation mandated by Soviet and post-Soviet agricultural planners between 1964 and 1994 consequently overtaxed the regional water supply.
Poorly designed irrigation networks led to massive runoff, which increased soil salinity and carried toxic agricultural chemicals downstream to other fields, the Aral Sea, and populated areas of the region.
As the desiccation of the Aral Sea came to international attention in the 1980s, water-use policy became a contentious issue between Soviet republics such as Tajikistan, where the main rivers rise, and those farther downstream, including Uzbekistan.
One of Tajikistan's leading industrial sites, the aluminum plant at Tursunzoda (formerly known as Regar), west of Dushanbe near the border with Uzbekistan, generates large amounts of toxic waste gases that have been blamed for a sharp increase in the number of birth defects among people who live within range of its emissions.
However, the enforcement activity of the ministry was limited severely by the political upheavals that plagued Tajikistan in its first years of independence.
The Tajik branch's main functions have been to conduct environmental research and to organize protests against the Roghun Hydroelectric Plant project.
Environment - international agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Environmental Modification, Ozone Layer Protection Tajikistan is home to some of the highest mountains in the world, including the Pamir and Alay ranges.
The massive mountain ranges are cut by hundreds of canyons and gorges at the bottom of which run streams that flow into larger river valleys where the majority of the country's population lives and works.
The Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan lie in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province (GBAO) in the east half of the country.
