Amu Darya
Amu Darya is a mapped river in the YearMaps hydrographic index. Nurek Dam stands on the Vakhsh, in this river's basin, and is written up below. River courses organise settlement, agriculture and frontier-making more durably than any political boundary, and this reach is indexed against the dams, lakes and cities within its catchment.
- Feature Class
- River
- Dams Recorded
- 1
- Coordinates
- 40.31°, 62.40°
About Amu Darya
The Amu Darya, historically known as the Oxus, is a major river in Central Asia which flows through Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Rising in the Pamir Mountains, north of the Hindu Kush, the Amu Darya is formed by the confluence of the Vakhsh and Panj rivers, in the Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve on the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and flows from there north-westwards into the southern remnants of the Aral Sea. However, today the Amu Darya does not reach the Aral Sea, and its mouth is in a dried-up area, of what was once the Aral Sea. In its upper course, the river forms part of Afghanistan's northern border with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. In ancient history, the river was regarded as the boundary of Greater Iran with Turan, which roughly corresponded to present-day Central Asia. The Amu Darya has a flow of about 70 cubic kilometres per year on average.
Encyclopedic summary adapted from Wikipedia: Amu Darya (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Amu Darya in Depth
History
In the late 3rd millennium BCE, the watershed was home to a river valley civilization, forgotten to history until its discovery by Soviet archaeologists in the 1970's.
The ancient Greeks called the Amu Darya the Oxus. In ancient times, the river was regarded as the boundary between Greater Iran and Ṫūrān (Persian: تُوران). The river's drainage lies in the area between the former empires of Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great, although they occurred at very different times. When the Mongols came to the area, they used the water of the Amu Darya to flood Konye-Urgench. One southern route of the Silk Road ran along part of the Amu Darya northwestward from Termez before going westwards to the Caspian Sea.
Description
The river has a total length of 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi), and its drainage basin covers 534,739 square kilometres (206,464 sq mi), providing a mean discharge of about 97.4 cubic kilometres (23.4 cu mi) of water per year. The river is navigable for over 1,450 kilometres (900 mi). All of the water comes from the high mountains in the south where annual precipitation can be over 1,000 mm (39 in). Even before large-scale irrigation began, high summer evaporation meant that not all of this discharge reached the Aral Sea – though there is some evidence the large Pamir glaciers provided enough meltwater for the Aral to overflow during the 13th and 14th centuries.
Sections adapted from Wikipedia: Amu Darya (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Amu Darya: Key Facts
| Length | 2,620 km |
|---|---|
| Average discharge | 1,400 m³/s |
| Drainage basin | 309,000 km² |
| Source | Pamir River |
| Mouth | South Aral Sea |
| Tributaries | Kunduz River, Kofarnihon River, Surxondaryo, Sherabad River, Zeravshan, Khulm River, Vakhsh River, Panj River |
Facts from Wikidata Q8493 (CC0).
Nurek Dam
Nurek Dam
Earth-fill dam · Khatlon, Tajikistan
Nurek Dam is an earth-fill dam on the Vakhsh, in the Amu Darya basin, in Khatlon, Tajikistan, standing 300 m (984 ft) high and completed in 1980. It carries an installed hydroelectric capacity of 3,015 MW. The structure impounds Nurek Reservoir.
The Nurek Dam (Russian: Нурекская ГЭС; Tajik: Нерӯгоҳи обии Норак, Nerūgohi obii Norak, Tajik for Nurek Hydro-electric Station) is an earth-fill embankment dam on the Vakhsh River in Tajikistan. Its primary purpose is hydroelectric power generation and its power station has an installed capacity of 3,015 MW. Construction of the dam began in 1961 and the power station's first generator was commissioned in 1972. The last generator was commissioned in 1979 and the entire project was completed in 1980 when Tajikistan was still a republic within the Soviet Union, becoming the tallest dam in the world at the time. At 304 m (997 ft), it is currently the second tallest man-made dam in the world, after being surpassed by Jinping-I Dam in 2013. The Rogun Dam, also along the Vakhsh in Tajikistan, may exceed it in size when completed.
Adapted from Wikipedia: Nurek Dam (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Dam type
- Earth-fill
- Structural height
- 300 m (984 ft)
- Installed capacity
- 3,015 MW
- Impounded river
- Vakhsh
- River basin
- Amu Darya
- Reservoir
- Nurek Reservoir
- Location
- Khatlon, Tajikistan
- Year completed
- 1980
- Height rank
- #2 of 115 indexed
- Output rank
- #20 of 102 indexed
- Coordinates
- 38.3711°, 69.3475°
Notable: Second tallest dam in the world (300 m) and highest dam in Central Asia.
Among the 115 dams indexed in YearMaps, Nurek Dam ranks #2 by structural height, behind Jinping-I Dam (305 m). By installed generating capacity it ranks #20, behind Three Gorges Dam (22,500 MW).
Nearest cities: Dushanbe (54 km), Kulob (62 km), Qurghonteppa (78 km).
More about Nurek Dam
Construction
The Nurek Dam was constructed by the Soviet Union between the years 1961 and 1980. It is uniquely constructed, with a central core of cement forming an impermeable barrier within a 300 m (980 ft)-high rock and earth fill construction. The volume of the mound is 54 million m3. The dam includes nine hydroelectric generating units, the first commissioned in 1972 and the last in 1979. An estimated 5,000 people were resettled from the dam's flooding area.
The dam is located in a deep gorge along the Vakhsh River in western Tajikistan, about 75 km (47 mi) east of the nation's capital of Dushanbe. A town near the dam, also called Nurek, houses engineers and other workers employed at the dam's power plant.
Sections adapted from Wikipedia: Nurek Dam (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Major River Dossiers
Hand-written studies of the great river systems of history.
Connected Reaches
Nearby watercourses in the same drainage network.
Water Bodies in the Catchment
Settlements Along the Reach
Hydraulic Infrastructure Nearby
Surrounding Terrain
Amu Darya: Quick Answers
- Where is Amu Darya?
- Amu Darya is located in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and Afghanistan and Tajikistan, at 40.3122° N, 62.3960° E.
- Are there dams on the Amu Darya?
- Yes. YearMaps records one dam on the Amu Darya and its tributaries: Nurek Dam (on the Vakhsh).
- How tall is Nurek Dam?
- Nurek Dam is 300 metres (984 ft) high and was completed in 1980.