Ask HN: What will happen if Tarim Basin is turned into an artificial sea? - baybal2
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eesmith
With what water? What happens to the people currently downstream?

Look at the Salton Sea in the US for one possibly similar example.

~~~
baybal2
>With what water?

Chinese assume that they can drill a colossal tunnel through Himalayas from
Pakistan, and have it connected to Arabian sea by a canal going through whole
Pakistan's lowlands in a distant future. The pilot project to test the
feasibility is the 1000km pipeline for water diversion from Tiben to Yangtze

~~~
eesmith
In the US West there's the saying that "water runs uphill towards money."

I know people dream big. There were grand plans to bring water from Alaska to
California, in off-shore pipes. [https://www.wired.com/2015/02/california-
pipe-water-alaska/](https://www.wired.com/2015/02/california-pipe-water-
alaska/) . That doesn't mean the dreams will ever be realized.

I know nothing about the geography of the Tarim Basin. A search now says the
lowest part of the Lop Desert is about 800 m
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lop_Desert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lop_Desert)
) which is in agreement with the color-coded topological map at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarim_Basin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarim_Basin)
.

Bring water up 800 m from the Arabian Sea is very expensive.

~~~
baybal2
Indeed, nothing but nuclear power can make that feasible. Although, there are
few small depressions in Lop Nur below the sea level.

One of the most crazy theories thrown on it is that the weight of the water
will eventually make Lop Nur's plate to subduct a hundred meters or more,
making the operation a little bit cheaper

~~~
eesmith
Cheap nuclear power would enable many other changes. To start with, cheap
desalinization and pumping means that more of California's Central Valley
would be open to farming. The elevation difference there is only 10-20 meters.

As to depression of the crust, yes, the crust is elastic and will depress with
enough weight. The density of water is about 1/3 that crustal rock, so as a
rough estimate, you'll need 3m of water for every 1m of depression.

This topic has been well-studied because glaciers during the last Ice Age
pushed down the crust.

I have a tough time thinking of how to provide the water needed to make an
artificial lake that averages 300m of depth over a wide enough area to cause
the crust to depress.

Lake Volta is the largest man-made dam by volume, at 148 km3. It's fed by
rivers, and the outflow is 1,210 m3/s. Now replace those rivers with pumps and
desalination plants, and scale it up for the Tarim Basin proposal.

No, it doesn't seem reasonable or even feasible. Other alternatives are
cheaper.

