Lake Qinghai

Characteristics

Surface: : 4400 -: 4583 km ² (the lake is emptied and its level varies seasonally)
average Depth: 21 m
maximum Depth: 27 m
catchment Area: : 29660 km ²
Altitude: : 3266 m, which does of it one of the highest lakes in China and the world

History

Geological history

The history tectonic, paleoenvironmental and geological of the lake are under study. The ecological data miss, but work would be in hand (studies of the sediments to include/understand the paleoclimates).

The bottom of the lake is crossed over all its length by five fault lines of south-eastern north-western orientation.

Prehistory with the Middle Ages

The old human history of the area is badly known. This lake is one of the lakes crowned with the eyes of the Tibetans. The human occupation of the area probably goes back to prehistory, but the banks of this lake of altitude were still described like completely wild and deserted until the beginning of, in particular by Alexandra David-Néel in 1919 (at the time of the Pandémie of Grippe of 1918 - 1919). They today are populated peasants and almost everywhere cultivated or exploited for the pasture or the salt, as testify some the recent satellite images. The modifications of husbandries, in particular with the passing of grass to the profit of the ploughings often involve a strong impoverishment of the soil.

Contemporary time

The recent history of the area of the lake to the doubling was marked by the seal of the secrecy with:

the installation of a Laogai (camp of labors forced) in its surroundings,
the installation and the operation of a secret nuclear military complex (Haiyan, 1170 km2), in the east, called “Ninth Academy” or “Machines 221”. This site would have produced uranium enriched and the first Chinese nuclear weapons (atomic bomb). It shelters zones of launching of Missile S. It produced and would have dispersed in the environment of the significant amounts of radioactive waste, until in the Années 1980 according to many nonofficial sources.

Near banks of the lake, in the county of Haiyan, within the autonomous prefecture of Haibei, Deng Xiao Ping supervised construction at the beginning of the Années 1960 of a research center of nuclear weapons on the plate Tibetan called the Ninth Academy. It is there, between 1958 and 1964, which was developed the first Chinese atomic bomb and 2 years later the first Chinese bomb with hydrogen which were tested by 46 nuclear explosions on the site of Lop Nor with the Eastern Turkestan. At the end of the Years 1970, a factory of uranium enrichment was built on the site of the lake Kokonor, which produced some daily nearly 400 kg. In the book “contemporary Nuclear industry” writes by Li Jue, director of the Ninth Academy, the Chinese recognized that until in 1991, the factory of Haiyan was always their principal nuclear milliary research center. According to the government Tibetan in exile, because of the construction of a research center of nuclear weapons in the vicinity, the lake Qinghai is contaminated by the radioactivity, involving cancers and malformations with the birth at the nomads Tibetans of this area.

The Chinese news agency Xinhua recognized that nuclear waste was deposited with the Tibet. July 19th, 1995, it brought back to the existence of a discharge of 20 square meters for the radioactive pollutants in the autonomous prefecture Tibetan of Haibei, close to banks of the lake Kokonor. In May 2007, Xinhua affirms that the nuclear research center will be opened with the public.

Religious site

It is more the salted big lake of Tibet, and like many other crowned lakes, it is the place of pilgrimage of many pilgrims who make the turn of it. The Russian geographer Nikolaï Przhevalsky had estimated that to make the full rotation of the lake one needed approximately 8 days for horse and 15 while going, but of the pilgrims advance more important figures: 18 days with horse and 23 with foot.

Its water is brackish, with a content of 15,2 g/l, and basic, with a pH of 9,6. The water supply comes mainly by the river Baha, coming from the North-West.

Economic activities

The fishing and the Chasse have seemed declining for forty years, in the rivers or the lake and with its accesses, either that the Poisson regressed, or following the rejections of radioactive waste in the lake or because of salinity.

The southern bank, accessible of drunk and distant of approximately 150 km of the regional capital, is visited and appreciated by a growing number of tourists, primarily Chinese, who come briefly to go for a walk with back of Cheval, yak or Chameau on the shore, or to visit part of the lake in boat, without enriching the local economy much, except at the time of the passage in one of the Restaurant S or by the purchase of memories or objects presented on alignments of stalls, collars, decorated swords). Children and nomads let themselves photograph in traditional costume for a little money. Ornithological tourism ( birdwatching ) also develops via specialized turns-opérators.

Ecology

It is in this sector with the varied natural habitats that are born three from largest Chinese rivers (Yangzi Jiang, Mekong, Huang He). This fact is at the origin of the name of the Natural reserve of the Sources of the three rivers ( Sanjiangyuan in Mandarin) which, with its 316000 km2 (360000 km2, according to other sources) is the largest natural reserve of the highest China and of the world culminating with more than 4000 m above sea level. In 1999, one started to replant grass and trees upstream of the basins of these large rivers to slow down the erosion there. According to the Chinese government, in 2001: 4200 Hectare S of forest were replanted and 387000 ha of primary forest are the subject of fire-protection or the illegal deforestation; 1,2 million hectares requires to be supervised better, wooded surface having fallen to 456158 ha from forest and 744572 ha of bushes.

Many birds nest on the ground on the banks and beaches. On the lake even, a small island says “island to the birds” was formed following the drawdown. The lake shelters thousands of birds now (Oie S, laridés, Cormoran S, etc) and becomes a famous zone of ornithological observation. The lake Qinghai is indeed one of the principal sites of reproductions for the Oie with barred head, the Goéland ichthyaète or the Mouette of Tibet which from there leave to winter in the south-eastern of Asia, to the Tibet or in India.

Lake and avian flu

It is on this site that was detected in spring 2005 strongest epizooty world due to the virus H5N1 of the Avian flu in wild birds. Five to ten percent of the goose world population with barred head ( Anser indicus ) would then have perished on the lake Qinghai.

The tests made on Chicken S and Souris showed that the virus of Qinghai was more virulent than the other stocks known in 2005: the scheduling of Amino-acid in reason PQGERRRKKRGLF is in conformity with the pathogenicity high and similar to that of the discovered virus with Novossibirsk (Russia), in Turkey and Romania in 2005. It seemed to be at the origin of the highly pathogenic viruses found in 2006 in Russia, Mongolia, with the Kazakhstan, in Europe, with the the Middle East and in Africa.

History

As of May 2005, important mortalities of birds were announced on the lake. The public is informed of it only after May 20th, 2005.

In June 2005, more than thousand birds are announced as died of the influenza in the natural reserve of the lake Qinghai. One evokes then six thousand dead birds into two or three months on the same site (AFP Beijing).

The geese with barred head, the Gulls of Tibet, and the seagulls ichtyaètes according to D Liu Jinhua (college of veterinary medicine of Beijing) seem most affected. During the tests in laboratory, the chickens to which the virus was inoculated died at the end of twenty hours and the mice at the end of three days, specifies the Wenhuibao .

Then a second infection was discovered in the town of Tacheng located on the border with Kazakhstan at thousand six hundreds kilometer at the east of the lake with more than thousand touched domestic geese of which four hundred and sixty died. These birds at the end of July leave usually the lake Qinghai and in August, for the south and south-west, in particular Thailand, India and Pakistan, but their migratory roads are badly known.

A Chinese Internet site ( Boxun News ) and the medical alarm system Internet Pro-MED evoke two hundred people infected and hundred twenty-and-a died (they are these two same sources which had announced the appearance of the SARS in 2003 whereas the Chinese authorities denied the existence of an epidemic).

Tuesday June 28th 2005, WHO warns China against the extension risks of the virus when the gulls and the wild gooses of the west of the country migrate towards the south the summer 2005 (in particular to gain India and Pakistan). WHO asks that China make more tests and announces that the number of the wild birds reached in the province of Qinghai much more important than is announced May 21st and 27th 2005.

Friday the 1st er July 2005, the Chinese ministry of agriculture recognizes that the avian flu reappeared in the province of Qinghai at the beginning of May 2005. Epizooty is according to him under control. Dead the migratory birds number (six thousand on the whole) would not be any more but of twenty per day since June 8th, 2005.

Liu Jinhua (Jinhua Liu and Al, re-examined Science , July 2005) estimate that this virus has characteristics by making a candidate for a Pandémie, if it were humanized. Fifteen animals (chickens and mouse) on sixteen tested died in less than three days after exposure to the virus.

Monday the 1st er May 2006: after the thaw of the lake, and a year after the first episode of mortality (May 1st, 2006), a discrete official statement announces that a goose with barred head would have died in a village of the district of Gangcha of the province of Qinghai. Virus H5N1 is confirmed by the ministry for Chinese agriculture and the provincial office of administration veterinary surgeon. Other dead birds were found in the zone which was disinfected. The monitoring of migrating is reinforced in this area.

Friday May 26th 2006: according to the analyzes, the 400 migratory birds died in the Prefecture of Nagchu (with the Tibet) very rich in lakes accommodating of the migratory birds, and in the autonomous Préfecture Tibetan of Golog (Chinese province of Qinghai) were quite carrying virus H5N1. These two zones are on the avian migratory way passing by the district of Yushu (province of Qinghai, Amdo in Tibetan), where more than one hundred of wild birds had been found died at the beginning of May 2006. It is one of the corridors of migration which connect the India to the zone of the lake Qinghai touched by the most important mortality of wild birds by the H5N1 since 1995. These zones of altitude are populated very little and do not shelter poultries. The authorities want to be reassuring by specifying that these zones of altitude are populated little and do not shelter poultries, that they disinfected the sites concerned and that the monitoring of the birds was reinforced there.

Are the birds vectors of the H5N1? Did the virus transfer?

Epizooty with H5N1 of the lake Qinghai was in the middle of these questions. The assumption according to which the migratory birds were the principal vectors of the H5N1 was initially supported by D Webster. The phylogenetic study of Dr. Yi Guan of the University of Hong-Kong however showed that the transmission was secondary with an infection coming from industrial poultry Chinese breedings.

Ornithologists, whose Martin Williams of HongKong, since 2005 denounced the theory of the responsibility first for the migratory birds: the dead birds with the lake Qinghai in China were suspectés to be at the origin of the cases in Russia and Mongolia. However, the dates of propagation of the epidemic corresponded to one period of sedentariness for geese and the first hearths Siberian and located in Russia of the west all are curiously located along the Transsibérien then of a railway which goes down from Moscow towards the south. This evokes a transport of the virus by the man, assumption quoted by other authors (Wetlands International) then by AFSSA in France, but seems it without being tested nor thorough in 2005-2006.

Epizooty with H5N1 of Qinghai in May 2005, which mainly implied geese with barred head was declared close to sites where FAO would have helped to establish an exploitation of Pisciculture integrated into the beginning of the Années 1990 according to unquestionable ONG. Of ONG (whose international Birdlife) pointed out that the lake Qinghai is also one of the zones where FAO promoted the direct use of droppings of Poule or Lisier of Porc, to enrich water by piscicultural zones, but these excrements if they are not biosécurisés by disinfection, composting or methanisation are likely to contain and preserve the H5N1 during several months (human excrements not biosecurized are also usually used like piscicultural manure, for carp S, Tilapia S, etc, or in the Rizière S in Asia and in other areas of the world). Thus, the viruses of influenza HAVE HP (highly pathogenic) seems to thus be able to be easily and quickly dispersed in the watery environment. So in 2003 one missed scientific data on the presence of the H5N1 in the digestive tract and the excrements, of the recent studies on the Animal (in particular the Mammifère S) and the man showed that the excrements could contain very important viral loads. Certain piscicultures and rice plantations could thus constitute new reserves of virus.

In addition, the newspaper Nature reveals in May 2006 that a breeding located very close to the lake developed an experimental program associating domestic birds and wild birds, aiming at the goose reproduction to reconstitute the wild populations decimated by the hunting and the modifications of their habitat.

ONG environmental raise that a report/ratio 2003 on the integrated systems of pisciculture indicated: “Recently, the cattle and the fish were implied in the irregular occurrence of the flu pandemics; the total impacts on the public health of this technique of integration are enormous. ” This report/ratio includes a reference in an article published in Nature in 1988 by Christoph Scholtissek of the Université of Gießen in Germany and Ernest Naylor of the Université of Bangor to the Wales, treating grippales pandemic risk related to piscicultures. It indicated that promiscuity between fisheries undertakings and livestock “can spout out the creation of a considerable human health hazard”.

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