The canal opened up huge new tracts of land to agriculture, especially to cotton monoculture heavily promoted by the Soviet Union, and supplying Ashgabat with a major source of water.

The canal is also a major factor leading to the Aral Sea environmental disaster.

The Soviet regime planned to at some time extend the canal to the Caspian Sea.

In the early 1950s, construction began on the Main Turkmen Canal (Russian: Главный Туркменский канал), which would start at a much more northerly location (near Nukus), and run southwest toward Krasnovodsk.

The works were abandoned after the death of Joseph Stalin, the current Karakum Canal route being chosen instead.