Socio-hydrologic perspectives of the co-evolution of humans and water in the Tarim River basin, Western China: the Taiji–Tire model

摘要

This paper presents a historical socio-hydrological analysis of the TarimRiver basin (TRB), Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in Western China, fromthe time of the opening of the Silk Road to the present. The analysis isaimed at exploring the historical co-evolution of coupled human–watersystems and at identifying common patterns or organizing principlesunderpinning socio-hydrological systems (SHS). As a self-organized entity,the evolution of the human–water system in the Tarim Basin reached stablestates for long periods of time, but then was punctuated by sudden shifts dueto internal or external disturbances. In this study, we discuss three stableperiods (i.e., natural, human exploitation, and degradation and recovery) andthe transitions in between during the past 2000 years. During the"natural" stage that existed pre-18th century, with small-scale humansociety and sound environment, evolution of the SHS was mainly driven bynatural environmental changes such as river channel migration and climatechange. During the human exploitation stage, especially in the 19th and 20thcenturies, it experienced rapid population growth, massive land reclamationand fast socio-economic development, and humans became the principal playersof system evolution. By the 1970s, the Tarim Basin had evolved into a newregime with a vulnerable eco-hydrological system seemingly populated beyondits carrying capacity, and a human society that began to suffer from seriouswater shortages, land salinization and desertification. With intensifieddeterioration of river health and increased recognition of unsustainabilityof traditional development patterns, human intervention and recovery measureshave since been adopted. As a result, the basin has shown a reverse regimeshift towards some healing of the environmental damage. Based on our analysiswithin TRB and a common theory of social development, four general types ofSHSs are defined according to their characteristic spatio-temporal variationsof historical co-evolution, including primitive agricultural, traditionalagricultural, industrial agricultural, and urban SHSs. These co-evolutionarychanges have been explained in the paper in terms of the Taiji–Tire model, arefinement of a special concept in Chinese philosophy, relating to theco-evolution of a system because of interactions among its components.