Water Unites

Pamir / Amu Darya
The Pamir still fascinates explorers, just as it fascinated Marco Polo, whose path to China
in the 13th century led him through these mountains. And today we follow the route of
great scientists and adventurers from these glaciers to the Aral Sea. This journey has to
start at a very high altitude because this is where the big rivers of Central Asia originate.
It was not until August 2011 that I found out that a helicopter can cross mountain ranges
of more than 5 500 meters. «Take the mask and the oxygen,» Jean Schneider, a professor
of geology from Austria, told me. Otherwise, I would soon lose consciousness, he said.
We were on the way to one of the sources of the Amu Darya, part of an odyssey to find
answers to the big questions: How will global warming affect Central Asia? What will be
the consequences of glaciers melting? Where should we expect the next big landslides
and other catastrophes that could strike certain areas of the Pamirs. While I was up in the
air, I realized that I had never experienced anything comparable to this powerful natural
spectacle. The Fedchenko glacier has been in motion for centuries. From the helicopter,
one can see the gray-brown-white ice stream, its uniqueness and greatness. «Glaciers have
a lot in common with people», I thought. They can be large or small, young or old. No
one looks exactly like the other. And the Fedchenko, at 77 kilometers, is the longest in
the world outside of the polar regions. Its forms and colors recall a modern art painting.
But what will be the future for glaciers in this part of the world? The Fedchenko is not
the only one that is getting shorter, and its 1000-meter-thick ice is getting thinner. Huge
talus slopes give us a vague idea of how far the ice has receded. We may face a continuous
melting of these glaciers. As a result, the amount of water that flows from the Pamirs will
decline in the very long run. Glacial lakes are growing larger and will probably overflow
one day. Higher water pressure destabilizes slopes, causing land- and mudslides that can
bury entire villages.
For example, the tallest natural dam in the world is situated in the Pamirs. After an
earthquake in 1911, a slope slid down into the valley where the Murghab River flowed, burying
the village of Usoi. A massive 500-meter-tall rock wall created the Sarez Lake, which
today is 56 kilometers long. Most experts consider the dam’s condition to be safe. But given
local seismic activity and glacier melt, slopes above the dam may become unstable and fall
into it, sending water over the top. A collapse of the natural dam of the Sarez Lake would
be disastrous for people on the banks of rivers that flow from it. Not far from the Sarez
Lake, we fly over Khorugh, the capital of Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous
Province. Khorugh, the most important town in the Pamirs, is situated at the confluence
of the Ghund and Panj rivers, two tributaries of the Amu Darya. The Panj forms a natural
border, hundreds of kilometers long, between Afghanistan and Tajikistan. More than
25 000 rivers flow across Tajikistan. The country is rich in water resources and mountains.
During Soviet times, big projects were implemented to regulate the rivers. Not far from
Dushanbe, the capital, a massive concrete wall sweeps across the Vakhsh river embankment.
It is the Nurek Dam, and from bottom to top it measures 300 meters. It’s the tallest
dam in the world. It took 20 years to build and it has stored the water of the Vakhsh River
since 1980. Investments in large-scale hydropower were already being made decades ago.
70 Photo essay Pamir / Amu Darya