Sarykopa ( kk, Сарықопа; russian: Сарыкопа) is a bittern salt lake in the

Kostanay Region Kostanay Region ( kk, Қостанай облысы, translit=Qostanai oblysy; russian: Костанайская область, translit=Kostanayskaya oblast) is a region of Kazakhstan. Its administrative center is the city of Kostanay. The pop ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental coun ...

. Sarykopa lies in the

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the temperate grasslan ...

of the central sector of the

Turgay Basin Turgay is a Turkish given name for males. People named Turgay include: * Turgay Avcı, Turkish Cypriot politician * Turgay Bahadır, Turkish-Austrian footballer * Turgay Gemicibasi, Turkish footballer * Turgay Semercioğlu, Turkish footballer * Tur ...

in Zhangeldi District, in the southern area of Kostanay Region. There are a number of villages near the lake.Sarykopa Lake System
/ref>

Geography

Sarykopa is an

endorheic An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...

lake. Its shape is elongated, stretching roughly from SSW to NNE . The long Saryozen river flows into the lake from the north and the Teke from the west. Since the lake is fed by snow its level is subject to variations according to the inflow, reaching a maximum area of in the spring floods when the snows melt. In years of significant

snowfall Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout ...

the lake becomes a single body of water and its waters may flow out into the Turgay river through a channel close to

Tauysh Tauysh ( kk, Тәуіш) is a village in Zhangeldi District, Kostanay Region, Kazakhstan. It is the administrative center of Zharkol rural district (KATO code - 394249100). Population: Geography Tauysh is located at the southern end of lake S ...

village in the south, but such periods are very few and far between.''Kazakhstan National Encyclopedia'' / Ch. ed. B.O. Jakyp. — Almaty: « Kazakh encyclopedia» ZhSS, 2011. ISBN 9965-893-64-0(T.Z.),ISBN 9965-893-19-5 Usually the surface of the lake stays around in the more common periods of low water where Sarykopa, especially in the summer, breaks up into a cluster of separate lakes with no connection between them. The depth fluctuates between and . The western banks are gently-sloping, while the eastern shore rises steeply up to between to cliff-like banks.Сарыкопа
''

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

'' in 30 vols. — Ch. ed.

A.M. Prokhorov Alexander Mikhailovich Prokhorov (born Alexander Michael Prochoroff, russian: Алекса́ндр Миха́йлович Про́хоров; 11 July 1916 – 8 January 2002) was an Australian-born Soviet-Russian physicist known ...

. - 3rd ed. - M. Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969-1978. (in Russian) Google Earth

Fauna

Sarykopa is a refuge for birds such as the white-tailed lapwing, steppe gull,

slender-billed curlew The slender-billed curlew (''Numenius tenuirostris'') is a bird in the wader family Scolopacidae. Isotope analysis suggests the majority of the former population bred in the Kazakh Steppe despite a record from the Siberian swamps, and was migr ...

and the

great white pelican The great white pelican (''Pelecanus onocrotalus'') also known as the eastern white pelican, rosy pelican or white pelican is a bird in the pelican family. It breeds from southeastern Europe through Asia and Africa, in swamps and shallow lakes ...

, as well as the critically endangered

siberian crane The Siberian crane (''Leucogeranus leucogeranus''), also known as the Siberian white crane or the snow crane, is a bird of the family Gruidae, the cranes. They are distinctive among the cranes: adults are nearly all snowy white, except for their ...

,Sites with great importance for the Siberian Crane
/ref> but the effects of human action on the lake are unfavorable for wildlife.

References

External links

Saryarka – Steppe and Lakes of Northern Kazakhstan
Lakes of Kazakhstan Kostanay Region Endorheic lakes of Asia {{Kazakhstan-geo-stub

Geography

Fauna

See also

References

External links