Largest freshwater lake in Mongolia
Lake Khovsgol
(
Mongolian
:
Х?всг?л нуур
,
romanized:
Hovsgol nur
) is the largest freshwater
lake
in
Mongolia
by volume and second largest by area after
Uvs Lake
. It is located near the northern border of Mongolia, about 200 km (124 mi) west of the southern end of
Lake Baikal
. It is nicknamed the "Younger sister" of those two "sister lakes".
The lake's name is also spelled
Hovsgol
,
Khovsgol
, or
Huvsgul
in
English
texts. In Mongolian it is also referred to as
Х?всг?л далай
(
Hovsgol dalai
;
lit.
'
Ocean Khovsgol
'
) or
Далай ээж
(
Dalai ej
;
lit.
'
Ocean Mother
'
).
Geography
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]
Lake Khuvsgul is located in the northwest of
Mongolia
near the
Russian border
, at the foot of the eastern
Sayan Mountains
. It is 1,645 metres (5,397 feet)
above sea level
, 136 kilometres (85 miles) long and 262 metres (860 feet) deep. It is the second-most voluminous freshwater lake in Asia, and holds almost 70% of Mongolia's fresh water and 0.4% of all the fresh water in the world.
[1]
The town of
Hatgal
lies at the southern end of the lake.
Lake Khuvsgul's
watershed
is relatively small, and it has only small tributaries. It is drained at the southern end by the
Egiin Gol
, which connects to the
Selenge
and ultimately flows into
Lake Baikal
. Between the two lakes, its waters travel more than 1,000 km (621 mi), and fall 1,169 metres (3,835 feet), although the line-of-sight distance is only about 200 km (124 mi). Its location in northern Mongolia forms one part of the southern border of the great Siberian
taiga
forest, where the dominant tree is the Siberian larch (
Larix sibirica
).
The southern end of the lake as seen from the ISS in 2017.
Mongolian arats at the lake
The lake is surrounded by several mountain ranges. The highest mountain is the
Burenkhaan / Monkh Saridag
(3,492 metres (11,457 feet)), whose peak, north of the lake, lies exactly on the
Russian-Mongolian border
. The lake freezes over completely in winter, and the ice cover is strong enough to carry heavy trucks; transport routes on its surface offer shortcuts to the normal roads. However, this practice is now forbidden, to prevent pollution of the lake from both oil leaks and trucks breaking through the ice. An estimated 30?40 vehicles have broken through the ice into the lake over the years.
[
citation needed
]
There is a roughly
elliptical
island in the middle of the lake, named
Wooden Boy Island
, measuring 3 km east?west and 2 km north?south. It is located about 11 km from the lake's eastern shore, and 50 km north of the town of
Hatgal
.
[2]
Ecological significance
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Lake Khovsgol
Rainy clouds over Lake Khovsgol
Khuvsgul is one of seventeen
ancient lakes
in the world, being more than 2 million years old, and the most pristine (apart from
Lake Vostok
),
[3]
[4]
as well as being the most significant drinking water reserve of Mongolia. Its water is potable without any treatment. Hovsgol is an ultra
oligotrophic
lake with low levels of nutrients, primary productivity and high water clarity (
Secchi depths
> 18 m are common). Hovsgol's fish community is species-poor compared to that of Lake Baikal. Species of commercial and recreational interest include Eurasian perch (
Perca fluviatilis
), burbot (
Lota lota
), lenok (
Brachymystax lenok
), and the endangered
endemic
Hovsgol grayling (
Thymallus nigrescens
). Though endangered by poaching during its spawning runs, the Hovsgol grayling is still abundant throughout much of the lake.
[5]
[6]
The Lake area is a National Park bigger than
Yellowstone
and strictly protected as a transition zone between Central Asian
Steppe
and the Siberian
Taiga
. Despite Hovsgol's protected status,
illegal fishing
is common and prohibitions against commercial fishing with gillnets are seldom enforced. The lake is traditionally considered sacred in a land suffering from arid conditions where most lakes are salty.
The Park is home to a variety of wildlife such as
ibex
,
argali
,
elk
,
wolf
,
wolverine
,
musk deer
,
brown bear
, Siberian
moose
, and
sable
.
The Hovsgol (Khovsgol) Long-term Ecological Research Site (LTERS) was established in 1997 and an extensive research program began soon thereafter. Now part of an international network of long-term study sites, the Hovsgol LTERS provides a stage for nurturing Mongolia's scientific and environmental infrastructures, studying climate change, and developing sustainable responses to some of environmental challenges facing the lake and its watershed.
Recent studies has identified high levels of
plastic pollution
(esp.
microplastics
) in the lake, showing that even small rural populations can cause high plastics pollution levels, as high as elsewhere around the world.
[7]
[8]
Etymology and transliterations
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]
The name
Khovsgol
is derived from
Turkic
words for "Khob Su Kol, means Lake with Great water"
[9]
Gol
is the Turkic word for "lake" and today the Mongolian word for river. There are a number of different transcription variants, depending on whether the Cyrillic "х" is transliterated to "h" or "kh," or whether the "?" is transliterated to "o," "o," or "u." Transcriptions from the name in the classical Mongolian script, like Hubsugul, Khubsugul etc. may also be seen.
Panoramic view of Lake Khovsgol
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"The Aquatic Invertebrates of the watershed of Lake Hovsgol in northern Mongolia"
. Institute for Mongolia Research Guide. Archived from
the original
on 2014-05-05
. Retrieved
2007-07-13
.
- ^
"
Wooden Boy / Dalan Modon Khuis Island
". Google Maps, accessed on 2019-05-24.
- ^
worldlakes.org:
lake Hovsgol
, retrieved 2007-02-27
- ^
Goulden, Clyde E. et al.:
The Mongolian LTER: Hovsgol National Park
Archived
2007-09-29 at the
Wayback Machine
, retrieved 2007-02-27
- ^
DIVER Magazine
, March 2009
Archived
2010-02-03 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel (eds.) (2017).
"
Thymallus nigrescens
"
in
FishBase
. February 2017 version.
- ^
"High-levels of microplastic pollution in a large, remote, mountain lake"
Marine Pollution Bulletin
, 15 August 2014
- ^
"Why Pristine Lakes Are Filled With Toxins."
BBC
, 30 April 2018
- ^
Shomfai, David Kara (2003) "Traditional musical life of Tuvans of Mongolia" in Melodii khoomei-III: 40, 80
External links
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]