期刊名称：Science et changements planétaires / Sécheresse
印刷版ISSN：1147-7806
电子版ISSN：1777-5922
出版年度：1995
卷号：6
期号：1
页码：135-143
出版社：John Libbey Eurotext
摘要：Authors Monique Mainguet , René Létolle , Nikita Glazovsky Laboratoire de géographie zonale, Université Reims - Cnampagne-Ardenne, 57, rue Pierre-Taittinger, 51100 Reims, France, Laboratoire de géologie appliquée, Université Pierre-et-Marie Curie, 4, place Jussieu, 75252 Paris cedex 05, France, Institut de géographie, Staromonetny per 29, 109017 Moscou, CEI Page(s) : 135-43 Published in: 1995 Although it has the world’s largest and fourth-largest lakes, the Caspian and the Aral, the Aralo-Caspian region is a dryland, and one of the most unusual on the planet. Here, the notions of drought and aridity take on different meanings. Drought is not associated with a deficit of rainfall; the reasons are more meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, edaphic and, for the Aral, anthropic. The main characteristics setting this region apart are endorheism and its two lakes positioned on the shifting boundary between arid and semi-arid zones. It is precisely this endorheism and aridity which make the region difficult to develop and its future uncertain. With no regard to the drought, the wrong sort of industry and agriculture have been built up, bringing the factors which triggered the environmental crisis in their wake: increasing population pressure and high degree of technology. The paper closes with the question of development and dense human occupation: in dry ecosystems such as these, ones we could almost call handicapped, are they really realistic?
