Climate Change Threatens Silk Road in China

A historic area of China is under threat from climate change, according to a new study.

Extensive coverage is given these days to the impact of climate change on Polar regions.  The new report, however, highlights how rising temperatures are impacting on other, icy parts of the world, too, such as Chinese glacial regions.  In it, scientists draw attention to how flooding is taking place at China’s access route into the historic Silk Road – the reason, climate change.  Glacier melts, they say, are happening over Gansu Province’s Hexi Corridor, and these are causing intense localised floods.

The Silk Road

The Silk Road is an interconnected series of trade routes that links up Asia and Europe, along which silk and other products have been carried between countries for thousands of years.  Among the cities found along the Silk Road are Istanbul, Damascus, Mumbai, Kabul and Venice. 

The situation in China typifies what scientists expect to occur as a result of climate change – dry regions lying close to glaciers will endure heavy flooding, but once these glaciers are gone, they will become unsustainably dry.  And, according to University of California hydrologist and geologist Chi-Yuen Wang, the Hexi Corridor – where China taps into the Silk Road – is “...an extremely arid area, with an average annual precipitation of about 125 millimetres”.

Floods having been taking place on a regular basis in the Hexi Corridor for the past four years.

Climate Change in China

Wang is one of the scientists assessing the impact of climate change in China and he – along with the University of Nanjing’s Jian Sheng Chen – examined the chemical properties of local spring water, concluding that the majority of it was emanating from the glaciers. 

The Hexi corridor is framed by the Qilian mountains and other mountainous areas.  For the past two decades, the average temperature in the Qilian mountains has being annually increasing by approximately four-hundreds of a degree (Centigrade).  This has led to annual glacier shrinkage of up to seven metres per annum, with the water created as a result of this contraction winding its way down to springs in the corridor that millions of Chinese people draw from.

Spring floods can impact devastatingly on the area:  Jinquan and Zhangye – two local cities – have suffered repeated floods in recent times, causing around 1,000 families living there to leave for good.

According to Wang and Chen, the situation will probably not get better, with the prospect of the majority of the Hexi corridor’s glaciers vanishing by the middle of this century.  The area is in dire need of fresh new water management methods, they add.