Ebinur Lake

Ebinur Lake

Ebinur Lake is the largest salt lake in Xinjiang and the largest lake in Junggar basin. Moxi Mongolian is called Ebinur. Ebinur is Xiangyang, Naor is lake, and Ebinur is Chaoyang lake.

It is located 35 km north of Jinghe County, adjacent to the section from Jinghe to Alashankou of Lanzhou Xinjiang Railway in the west, 35 km north to Alashankou, and Ganjiahu Haloxylon Forest Nature Reserve in the East. Bortala River, Jinghe River and Kuitun River flow into Ebinur Lake from west, South and East respectively, and become the main source of lake water. The lake is elliptical, covering an area of 650 square kilometers, with an average depth of 2-3 meters and an altitude of 189 meters.

In the early days of the founding of the people's Republic of China, the lake area was 1200 square kilometers, and now it has shrunk to about 500 square kilometers. The desertification in the lakeside area has intensified, becoming one of the main sources of Sandstorm in Western China, directly threatening the sustainable development of the economic belt on the northern slope of Tianshan Mountain and the safe operation of the new Eurasian land bridge.

geographical position

Between Jinghe county and Alashankou city in Bozhou, Xinjiang.

Resource introduction

Ebinur Lake is rich in resources. In the lake area, there are abundant non-metallic mineral deposits such as salt, mirabilite, magnesium sulfate, boron, bromine and iodine. There are 125 million tons of sodium salt, 2 million tons of potassium salt, 97 million tons of sodium sulfate and more than 100 million tons of magnesium sulfate. This is an important producing area of salt and Mirabilite in Bortala Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture. As early as 1902, the Qing government set up the salt industry here under the system of "official supervision and commercial operation"; during the period of the Republic of China, the salt industry here was also very prosperous. After the founding of new China, the salt industry of Ebinur Lake has developed by leaps and bounds. The total suntan area is 201.31 hectares, the energy, communication and transportation facilities are complete, and the power and mechanization of water extraction, brine extraction, salt accumulation and transportation have been realized. The annual production capacity is 50000 tons of raw salt, 15000 tons of powdered and iodized refined salt, 30000 tons of mirabilite and 1000 tons of magnesium chloride. Salt industry has become the pillar industry of national economy in Jinghe county. The unique wetland ecological environment of Ebinur Lake is the place where hundreds of species of animals and plants live and multiply, with the diversity of its biological resources. Among the biological resources, Artemia is the second best, which is called "soft gold" by the people around Ebinur Lake. It has been listed as "Wetland Nature Reserve" in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Artemia, a small crustacean, lives in high salinity waters. Artemia egg is a good living bait for high-grade ornamental fish, rare shrimp and crab. Artemia is a rare resource in China. However, the Artemia resource of Ebinur Lake ranks first among more than 100 salt lakes in China. The annual stock of insects is about 4000 tons, and the annual stock of pure dried eggs is about 200 tons to 400 tons. Jinghe county and scientific research and production units jointly develop Artemia industry. Artemia, Artemia egg series product development projects were included in the 2000 Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region "spark" plan. At the beginning of 2000, the output value was 14 million yuan.

The economic value of the salt in Ebinur Lake and the potential content of Artemia in Ebinur Lake has been seriously demonstrated by experts, which is more than 1 trillion yuan. The dense reed along the Ebinur Lake is a valuable resource for paper industry and construction industry; the wild animals in the secondary forest, such as crane, swan, wild duck and muskrat, are not only precious species resources, but also provide broad space for tourism development. In summer, the blue waves are rippling; the reeds on the bank are full of green; the swans, ducks and geese are singing on the lake. In autumn, the clear water grows in the sky, and the reed flowers bloom in the morning and sunset. The lake is beautiful and charming. Wutong, shrub, and red willow trees are surrounded by lakes, and become the habitat of deer, wild sheep, hare and pheasant. They also grow wild flowers such as forget me, Senecio, violet, etc. In winter, under the influence of cold air, the waves form huge ice blocks. The next spring, when the lake thawed, many birds came here again to have children year after year. Many biological resources in wetlands are waiting for people to further understand and develop.

ecological environment

The lake area has a mid temperate continental arid climate, with an average annual temperature of 7.8 ℃, an average temperature of - 16.0 ℃ in January, and an extreme minimum temperature of - 36.4 ℃ (January 3, 1955); an average temperature of 25.0 ℃ in July, and an extreme maximum temperature of 41.3 ℃ (July 31, 1987); and an average frost free period of 190 days and sunshine duration of 2 hours The results show that the precipitation is 90.9mm, the maximum annual precipitation is 163.9mm (1958), the minimum annual precipitation is 28.5mm (1957), and the evaporation is 1 662mm. Alashankou (also known as Junggar gate) is a famous gale mouth in the northwest of the lake basin. The gale days in the whole year are 164 days, the maximum is 185 days, and the maximum wind speed is 55.0 M / s.

The catchment area is 50621.0km2 and the recharge coefficient is 97.0. The lake water is mainly supplied by surface runoff. There are 23 rivers entering the lake, including Kuitun River, Sikeshu River, Jinghe River, akar River, daheyanzi River, Bortala River and Shiling river. The total annual runoff of the rivers is 37.46 × 108m3, of which 5.6 × 108m3 enters the lake, while 31.86 × 108m3 is introduced into the irrigation area, seeps underground and consumed by surface evaporation and plant transpiration. Since 1950, the lake has shrunk by 548.0 km2. Only from June 1988 to May 1989, the water budget surplus was 0.56 × 108m3, which increased the lake surface to 651.0km2 (Yang Chuande, 1990).

The density of surface brine is 1.079, pH value is 8.49, and the salinity is 112.4g/l; the density of intercrystalline brine is 1.237, pH value is 6.91, and the salinity is 377.73g/l, which belongs to the sodium sulfate subtype salt lake formed by Meso Cenozoic tectonic fault depression. Salt deposits are mainly halite and mirabilite. Among them, rock salt is mainly distributed in the form of small salt lakes or salt flats in Hunan and Southeast. SHAQUANZI salt flat is the largest, with a length of 10.0km, a width of 1.0KM, an area of 10.0 ~ 15.0km2 and an average thickness of 0.35m. It is mainly rock salt, accompanied by mirabilite, anhydrous mirabilite, gypsum and magnesium salt. Glauber's salt is mainly distributed in Hubei and the south. In the north, the primary Glauber's salt deposit zone is 10.0km long, 1.0m wide, 0.05 ~ 0.10m thick, white spherical, and pure in texture. In the south, there are secondary Glauber's salt deposits in the lakeshore zone, with small area, but concentrated salt layer and good quality, which are conducive to small-scale mining. The reserves are 1.25 × 108t of rock salt, 200 × 104t of KCl, 700 × 104t of sodium sulfate, 1.07 × 108t of magnesium sulfate, B6 × 104t, Br2 × 104t and i400 × 104t. Aibihu salt and chemical plant is established to produce raw salt, fine salt, iodized salt and bischofite.

environmental deterioration

Ebinur Lake used to be an umbrella to maintain the ecological balance of the region and even the whole northern Xinjiang. The largest saltwater lake in Xinjiang has only 530 square kilometers of lake surface, and its large area of shrinkage has caused windy and sandy weather, which makes the residents in the nearby area miserable. Whenever the wind blows, they carry plastic bags to go out and cover their heads to prevent windy and sandy weather. In windy days, the scene of "wind blowing stones running" can be seen everywhere. Whenever a strong wind blows over the dry bottom of Ebinur Lake, the salt dust will roll and the sky will be dark. In the areas swept by dust, fields, houses and electric wires are covered with thick sand. Since the 1990s, the dust weather in Jinghe County, which is located beside Ebinur Lake, has averaged 112 days, nine times more than that in the 1960s. The annual dust fall is 289 tons per square kilometer.

Li Yaling, an expert who has been engaged in the study of ecological problems of Ebinur Lake for a long time, said that the ecological deterioration of Ebinur Lake Basin has in fact become the second major ecological problem in Xinjiang. The decline of groundwater level caused by the shrinkage of Ebinur Lake has greatly accelerated the desertification in the surrounding areas of the basin, and the desertification rate has reached 38 square kilometers per year.

According to experts' calculation, the dust and salt dust rolled up from the bottom of Lake Abby by gale is as high as 4.8 million tons per year, which also damages Urumqi hundreds of kilometers away. It is understood that in the past ten years, the desertified and alkalized grassland in Jinghe County near Ebinur Lake accounted for 70.2% of the available grassland area in the county, causing huge losses to the local agriculture and animal husbandry. Moreover, the salt dust caused by strong wind falls on the transmission line, resulting in an average of nearly 30 blackouts per year. In Jinghe County alone, the direct economic loss caused by wind and sand disasters is more than 50 million yuan per year, and the indirect loss is hundreds of millions of yuan.

The 312 national highway near Ebinur Lake has been forced to change its route for three times due to wind erosion of subgrade and sand burial of road surface. The Eurasian Continental Bridge along the 140 km section passing by the West Bank of Ebinur Lake is often interrupted due to quicksand burying the railway. The railway department said that Ebinur Lake sandstorm has become the biggest threat to keep the Second Eurasian land bridge unobstructed.

Beside the railway line near Ebinur Lake, we can see that the reed windbreak walls erected only a few months ago on both sides of the subgrade were either blown down or buried by yellow sand. A railway technician pointed to two or three meter high salons and said that every time sand comes, these salons will bury the railway lines. Although a huge amount of money is invested in windbreak every year, it still can't stop the salon moving forward and the damage caused by sandstorm to the railway department

Chinese PinYin : Ai Bi Hu