Lake Khövsgöl () is a lake in

Khövsgöl Province Khövsgöl () is the northernmost of the 21 Aimags of Mongolia, aimags (provinces) of Mongolia. The name is derived from Lake Khövsgöl. Geography and history The round-topped Tarvagatai (Khangai), Tarvagatai, Bulnain and Erchim sub-ranges of th ...

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

. It is the largest freshwater lake in the country by volume and second largest by area after

Uvs Lake Uvs Lake ( ) is a highly saline lake in an endorheic basin— Uvs Nuur Basin, primarily in Mongolia with a smaller part in Russia. It is the largest lake in Mongolia by surface area, covering 3,350 km2 at 759 m above sea level. The no ...

. It is nicknamed the "Younger sister" of those two "sister lakes". The lake's name is also spelled Hovsgol, Khövsgöl, or Huvsgul in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

texts. In Mongolian it is also referred to as (; ) or (; ).

Geography

Lake Khuvsgul is located in the northwest of

near the Russian border, at the foot of the eastern

Sayan Mountains The Sayan Mountains (, ; ) are a mountain range in southern Siberia spanning southeastern Russia (Buryatia, Irkutsk Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Tuva and Khakassia) and northern Mongolia. Before the rapid expansion of the Tsardom of Russia, the mou ...

. It is

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

, long and 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. The town of Hatgal lies at the southern end of the lake. Lake Khuvsgul's

watershed Watershed may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, an area of land where surface water converges (North American usage) Music * Watershed Music Festival, an annual country ...

is relatively small, and it has only small tributaries. It is drained at the southern end by the

Egiin Gol The Egiin Gol () is a river in the Khövsgöl and Bulgan aimags in northern Mongolia. It is the only outflow of Lake Khövsgöl and a left tributary of the Selenge river. It is long, and has a drainage basin of .Selenge and ultimately flows into

Lake Baikal Lake Baikal is a rift lake and the deepest lake in the world. It is situated in southern Siberia, Russia between the Federal subjects of Russia, federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast, Irkutsk Oblasts of Russia, Oblast to the northwest and the Repu ...

. Between the two lakes, its waters travel more than , and fall , although the line-of-sight distance is only about . Its location in northern Mongolia forms one part of the southern border of the great Siberian

taiga Taiga or tayga ( ; , ), also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga, or boreal forest, is the world's largest land biome. In North A ...

forest, where the dominant tree is the Siberian larch (''

Larix sibirica ''Larix sibirica'', the Siberian larch or Russian larch, is a frost-hardy tree native to western Russia, from close to the Finnish border east to the Yenisei valley in central Siberia, where it hybridises with the Dahurian larch ''L. gmelinii ...

''). The lake is surrounded by several mountain ranges. The highest mountain is the Bürenkhaan / Mönkh Saridag (), whose peak, north of the lake, lies exactly on the border with Russia. 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. There is a roughly elliptical island in the middle of the lake, named

Wooden Boy Island Wooden Boy () is a lake island in Khövsgöl Lake, Khövsgöl Province, Mongolia.Hatgal.Wooden Boy / Dalan Modon Khuis Island
. Google Maps, accessed on 2019-05-24.

Ecological significance

Khuvsgul is one of seventeen

ancient lake An ancient lake is a lake that has consistently carried water for more than one million years. Twelve of the 20 ancient lakes have existed for more than 2.6 million years, the full Quaternary period. Ancient lakes continue to persist due to plat ...

s in the world, being more than 2 million years old, and the most pristine (apart from

Lake Vostok Lake Vostok () is the largest of Antarctica's 675 known subglacial lakes. Lake Vostok is located at the southern Pole of Cold, beneath Russia's Vostok Station under the surface of the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is at above mean se ...

), as well as being the most significant drinking water reserve of Mongolia. Its water is potable without any treatment. Hovsgol is an ultra

oligotrophic An oligotroph is an organism that can live in an environment that offers very low levels of nutrients. They may be contrasted with copiotrophs, which prefer nutritionally rich environments. Oligotrophs are characterized by slow growth, low rates o ...

lake with low levels of nutrients, primary productivity and high water clarity (

Secchi depth The Secchi disk (or Secchi disc), as created in 1865 by Angelo Secchi, is a plain white, circular disk in diameter used to measure water transparency or turbidity in bodies of water. The disc is mounted on a pole or line and lowered slowly down ...

s > 18 m are common). The Lake area is a National Park bigger than

Yellowstone Yellowstone National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States located in the northwest corner of Wyoming, with small portions extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U ...

and strictly protected as a transition zone between Central Asian

Steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without closed forests except near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the tropical and subtropica ...

and the Siberian

Taiga Taiga or tayga ( ; , ), also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga, or boreal forest, is the world's largest land biome. In North A ...

. Despite Hovsgol's protected status,

illegal fishing Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) is an issue around the world. Fishing industry observers believe IUU occurs in most fisheries, and accounts for up to 30% of total catches in some important fisheries. Illegal fishing takes pl ...

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 Hövsgöl (Khövsgöl) 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 Hövsgöl 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 Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles (e.g. plastic bottles, bags and microbeads) in the Earth's environment that adversely affects humans, wildlife and their habitat. Plastics that act as pollutants are catego ...

(esp.

microplastics Microplastics are "synthetic solid particles or polymeric matrices, with regular or irregular shape and with size ranging from 1 μm to 5 mm, of either primary or secondary manufacturing origin, which are insoluble in water." Microplastics a ...

) in the lake, showing that even small rural populations can cause high plastics pollution levels, as high as elsewhere around the world.

Wildlife

The park is home to a variety of wildlife such as

ibex An ibex ( : ibex, ibexes or ibices) is any of several species of wild goat (genus ''Capra''), distinguished by the male's large recurved horns, which are transversely ridged in front. Ibex are found in Eurasia, North Africa and East Africa. T ...

argali The argali (''Ovis ammon''), also known as the mountain sheep, is a wild ovis, sheep native to the highlands of western East Asia, the Himalayas, Tibet, and the Altai Mountains. Description The name 'argali' is the Mongolian language, Mongolian ...

elk The elk (: ''elk'' or ''elks''; ''Cervus canadensis'') or wapiti, is the second largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. ...

wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, includin ...

wolverine The wolverine ( , ; ''Gulo gulo''), also called the carcajou or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species, member of the family Mustelidae. It is a muscular carnivore and a solitary animal. The w ...

musk deer Musk deer can refer to any one, or all eight, of the species that make up ''Moschus'', the only extant genus of the family (biology), family Moschidae. Despite being commonly called deer, they are not true deer belonging to the family Cervidae, b ...

brown bear The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear native to Eurasia and North America. Of the land carnivorans, it is rivaled in size only by its closest relative, the polar bear, which is much less variable in size and slightly bigger on av ...

, Siberian

moose The moose (: 'moose'; used in North America) or elk (: 'elk' or 'elks'; used in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is the world's tallest, largest and heaviest extant species of deer and the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is also the tal ...

, and

sable The sable (''Martes zibellina'') is a species of marten, a small omnivorous mammal primarily inhabiting the forest environments of Russia, from the Ural Mountains throughout Siberia, and northern Mongolia. Its habitat also borders eastern Kaz ...

. It has also been identified as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

. Hovsgol's fish community is species-poor compared to that of Lake Baikal. Species of commercial and recreational interest include Eurasian perch (''

Perca fluviatilis The European perch (''Perca fluviatilis''), also known as the common perch, redfin perch, big-scaled redfin, English perch, Euro perch, Eurasian perch, Eurasian river perch, Hatch, poor man's rockfish or in Anglophone parts of Europe, simply the ...

''), burbot ('' Lota lota''), lenok (''

Brachymystax lenok ''Brachymystax lenok'', the sharp-snouted lenok,Kartavtseva, I.V.; Ginatulina, L.K.; Nemkova, G.A.; and Shedko, S.V. (2013). ''Chromosomal study of the lenoks, Brachymystax (Salmoniformes, Salmonidae) from the South of the Russian Far East.'' Jou ...

''), and the endangered

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

Hovsgol grayling (''

Thymallus nigrescens ''Thymallus nigrescens'', also known as the Hovsgol grayling, is a species of freshwater fish in the salmon family. It is endemic to the Mongolian Lake Khovsgol where they usually live near or on the bottom of the lake. Description Hovsgol gra ...

''). Though endangered by poaching during its spawning runs, the Hovsgol grayling is still abundant throughout much of the lake.

Etymology and transliterations

The name ''Khövsgöl'' is derived from Turkic words for "Khob Su Kol, means Lake with Great water"Shomfai, David Kara (2003) "Traditional musical life of Tuvans of Mongolia" in Melodii khoomei-III: 40, 80 ''Göl'' 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 The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

"х" is transliterated to "h" or "kh," or whether the "ө" is transliterated to "ö," "o," or "u." Transcriptions from the name in the classical Mongolian script, like Hubsugul, Khubsugul etc. may also be seen.

References

External links

*
Gliding Along the Water in the Land of the Eternal Sky
''New York Times'', Jan Goodwin, May 8, 2005
Limnological Catalog of Mongolian Lakes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Khovsgol Ancient lakes Rift lakes Important Bird Areas of Mongolia Lakes of Khövsgöl Province World Heritage Tentative List Sacred lakes