How Climate Change and Human Interaction Alter Chemical Regime in Salt Lakes, Case Study: Lake Urmia, Aral Sea, the Dead Sea, and Lake Issyk-Kul

West Kazakhstan region is also rich in unique balneological hydromineral resources. The aim of the study was to review the studied, as well as little-known and promising, salt lakes of West Kazakhstan region, which have hydromineral resources suitable for balneological and recreational use is given. As a result of the field and laboratory researches in 2017-2020, 7 promising balneological sites were studied – the Lakes Bolshoy Sor, the Alzhansor, the Sorkol, the Hakisor, the Aralsor, the Edilbaysor, the Koysarysor. It was established that the studied peloids correspond to the genetic type of mainland silt mineral (sulphide) therapeutic mud typical of arid regions. According to the main indicators, the studied peloids are generally suitable for use in recreational, therapeutic and medical purposes, and in terms of the content of salts and therapeutically valuable components, they are not inferior to the medical mud of the resorts of Western Kazakhstan and the Dead Sea recognized in balneological practice.

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Alluvial deposition and lake-level fluctuations forced by Late Quaternary climate change: the Dead Sea case example

Sedimentary Geology ◽

10.1016/j.sedgeo.2003.07.001 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 162 (1-2) ◽

pp. 119-139 ◽

Cited By ~ 37

Author(s):

Y. Klinger ◽

J.P. Avouac ◽

D. Bourles ◽

N. Tisnerat

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Lake Level ◽

Late Quaternary ◽

Dead Sea ◽

Lake Level Fluctuations ◽

Quaternary Climate ◽

Alluvial Deposition ◽

The Dead

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Groundwater chemistry of strike slip faulted aquifers: the case study of Wadi Zerka Ma’in aquifers, north east of the Dead Sea

Environmental Earth Sciences ◽

10.1007/s12665-012-2135-8 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 70 (1) ◽

pp. 393-406 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Taleb Odeh ◽

Stefan Geyer ◽

Tino Rödiger ◽

Christian Siebert ◽

Mario Schirmer

Keyword(s):

Dead Sea ◽

Strike Slip ◽

Groundwater Chemistry ◽

North East ◽

The Dead

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A simple, robust, and automatic approach to extract water body from Landsat images (case study: Lake Urmia, Iran)

Journal of Water and Climate Change ◽

10.2166/wcc.2019.078 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Hadiseh Babaei ◽

Milad Janalipour ◽

Nadia Abbaszadeh Tehrani

Keyword(s):

Saline Lakes ◽

Continuous Monitoring ◽

Landsat 8 ◽

Lake Area ◽

Spectral Indices ◽

Lake Urmia ◽

Landsat Images ◽

The World ◽

Study Lake

Abstract Lake Urmia is one of the largest saline lakes in the world, and has a great effect on its surrounding ecosystems as well as the economic, social, and even cultural condition of its basin inhabitants. Hence, continuous monitoring of lake area changes is necessary and unavoidable for better land management and prevention of its degradation. In this study, by using Landsat 8 images and by preforming some essential pre-processing tasks, the area of the lake was estimated using the number of traditional spectral indices and a new one and the automatic Otsu's thresholding method for 5 years (2013–2017). The results showed that this index shows more accurate results than other indices when estimating the area of the lake and can separate water class from land one with an average overall accuracy of 96%.

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Changes in biogeochemistry recorded in the Lisan formation and the Dead Sea Basin

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-12712 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Alexandra Turchyn ◽

Harold Bradbury ◽

Adi Torfstein

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Isotopic Composition ◽

Hydrological Cycle ◽

Dead Sea ◽

Glacial Cycle ◽

Last Glacial ◽

The Dead ◽

Lisan Formation ◽

The Last Glacial ◽

Arava Valley

Terrestrial climate archives provide a rich array of information on regional climate dynamics that often can link to global climate change.&#160; A range of new metal and coupled isotope proxies is helping to unlock the most information from terrestrial archives and this paleoclimate information. The Jordon-Arava valley, tectonically active since the early Neogene, is one of the world&#8217;s largest pull-apart basins.&#160; Throughout the Pleistocene to the Holocene, the valley contained a series of lacustrine water bodies. &#160;As the valley is located on the boundary between the African-Arabian deserts and the Mediterranean regional climatic zone, studies of past conditions in these lacustrine bodies allows the reconstruction of changes in the regional hydrological cycle.&#160; Lacustrine sediments, such as those found in the Jordon-Arava valley, record paleoclimatic information similar to that found within marine sedimentary archives and often at much higher resolution, from millennial to even annual timescales. The Lisan Formation is a 40-80m thick Pleistocene marl, which was deposited in Lake Lisan, which existed over the last glacial cycle in the Jordan-Arava Valley. The Lisan Formation contains a significant quantity of annually-precipitated primary aragonite, which has not recrystallised to calcite, allowing for direct U-Th dating, which has led to an exceptional age model for the Lisan Formation.Here we discuss the measurement of the sulfur and oxygen isotopic composition of gypsum in the Lisan formation, as well as the generation of sulfur nodules within the formation that are not found in the sediment cores of the Dead Sea. We use this data to explore how sediment diagenesis, relating to changes in biogeochemistry, changes as a function of climate change over the last glacial cycle. We then present the calcium isotopic composition of the gypsum and interbedded aragonite, and show how the aragonite calcium isotopic composition covaries with lake level, and thus offers profound insight into the regional hydrological cycle in the Jordon-Arava Valley.

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Changes in the basic ionic composition and other parameters of the Aral Sea and the Dead Sea waters during their drying

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-7496 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Natalia Andrulionis ◽

Alexander Izhitskiy ◽

Isaak Gertman ◽

Evgeniy Yakushev ◽

Peter Zavialov

Keyword(s):

Ionic Composition ◽

Great Influence ◽

Dead Sea ◽

Water Bodies ◽

Aral Sea ◽

Anthropogenic Factors ◽

Water Volume ◽

Toxic Substances ◽

Hydrochemical Characteristics ◽

The Dead

In terms of water mass, salt lakes occupy 104 000 km3 (47 % of the total water volume of all lakes on the Earth), which is only slightly below that of fresh water lakes - 125 000 km3 (53%). Their waters are of certain economic importance, since they are used as raw materials for the extraction of valuable components and for therapeutic purposes. They also have a great influence on climate formation in the region. The drying out of the lakes entails an increase climate continentality. It also leads to an increase of frequency of dust and salt storms and storms that carry toxic substances over long distances from the source. This negatively affects public health. The drying of the Aral and Dead Seas is one of the largest environmental disasters of the 20th century. The reasons for their drying out are both natural such as global warming and aridization and anthropogenic factors such as diversions of river flows for the economic needs of the population of the regions. A sharp decrease in river runoff leads to a rapid drop in sea level, as well as to sharp interannual changes in the thermohaline structure and chemical composition of water. The annual runoff of the rivers has long ceased to fulfill the water resources of these water bodies. We report the results of water sampling campaigns conducted in the Aral Sea (2014-2019) and the Dead Sea (2017-2019). The main ionic composition, salinity, density and other parameters of the waters of the Aral and the Dead Seas were obtained. We compare the hydrochemical characteristics of these water bodies and their changes during with historical data and with each other. The studied natural water bodies are terminal lakes, characterized by high salinity of water, which is many times higher than the salinity of ocean waters. The ratios of the main ions in the studied sources differ significantly between water bodies, as well as from similar ratios in the oceans. We determined ionic composition of these water samples using potentiometric titrator Titrando 905 (Metrohm). The density of samples was determined by the density meter DMA 5000M (Anton Paar). Currently, the Aral Sea is a complex of separate residual lakes with diverging hydrological and hydrochemical characteristics. The Dead Sea today is divided into two basins, the southern part of which is used for industrial purposes. Significant changes of the ionic composition of water with time were registered in both lakes. However, in the waters of the Aral Sea, these processes are much more intense and rapid than those in than the waters of the Dead Sea.

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