Karez - Ancient Irrigation Project in Xinjiang

As I mentioned before that Xinjiang is an extremely dry windy sandy place.Oases in desert now benefited from a huge irrigation project, Karez well, which is said by indigenous people to have existed for over 2000 years, and is on the waiting list to be added in UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Karez is used in bahada areas and has shafts, underground and open channels, and flood dams, water comes from the snow melting in spring and summer from mountains around it, underground water yield can be stable regardless of the heat, drought, gale and sand outside, people along the hillside can pump water from every mouth of the well in front of each house.

 Karez's structure in English

Ancient people in this poor environment developed Karez by their traditional ecology knowledge of altitude difference between mountains and basins, climate seasonality and soil texture here, now we have approximate 1700 wells and 340km² land  irrigated.

Isn't it the brilliant result of ancient humans' fight with the tough nature?

--Zhang Yin