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Past and Current Changes in the Largest Lake of the World: The Caspian Sea

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Large Asian Lakes in a Changing World

Part of the book series: Springer Water ((SPWA))

Abstract

The Caspian Sea (CS) , located between Europe and Asia, is the largest lake in the world; however, its physical environment and its floor have oceanic characteristics. The CS is composed of a very shallow north sub-basin with a very low salinity mostly below 5 psu. The middle and southern sub-basins are deep and have a salinity of c. 13 psu. To the east, the Kara-Bogaz-Gol , a hypersaline lagoon, is connected to the middle sub-basin. The CS is endorheic and therefore very sensitive to changes in hydrography and climate . Because of its long history of isolation following the disconnection of the Caspian Sea from the Paratethys c. 6 million years ago, this ancient lake has many endemic species. The harsh environment of its brackish waters and the repeated salinity changes over the millennia, however, do not allow for a high biodiversity . The benthos is more varied than the plankton. The history of water-level changes remains poorly known even for the last centuries. Nevertheless, the amplitude was of >150 m in the Quaternary , several tens of meters in the Holocene and several meters in the last century. Many factors affect its natural state, such as petroleum pollution (an industry dating back to Antiquity), nutrient increase (alongside >14 million inhabitants along the coast), invasive species (e.g. the comb jelly Mnemiopsis leidyi), overfishing (including sturgeon) and modifications of its coastline (e.g. sand extraction). In comparison to other ancient lakes, the CS surface temperature has suffered from the fastest increase on record. Owing to the complex natural state of the CS, it is not easy to identify the Holocene-Anthropocene transition, although it may be suggested that is was approximately AD1950 when intense human activity started to modify the lake.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Since 1961, the water level reference is the Kronstadt gauge in the Baltic Sea. It is a historical reference for all former Soviet Union regions.

  2. 2.

    The type section of a layered stratigraphic unit that serves as the standard of reference for the definition and characterization of the unit (www.stratigraphy.org).

  3. 3.

    Since the middle of the 1990s, a noticeable progress occurred in the use of radar and laser altimetry for continental hydrology. It is important to note that this technique was initially designed for oceanography; but it very quickly became clear that satellite altimetry is an attractive technique for monitoring the water levels of lakes (Crétaux et al. 2016). Essentially, this technique has benefited from a continuous service since the launch of the satellite Topex/Poseidon in 1992, and this will continue in the years to come with various new missions.

    The combined global altimetry data set has more than 2-year-long history and is intended to be continuously updated in the coming decade. A given lake can be flown over by several satellites, with potentially several passes, depending on its surface area. Thus, combining altimetry data from several in-orbit altimetry missions increases the temporal resolution and the accuracy of the water-level estimation which depends on several factors: range, orbit and correction errors (Crétaux et al. 2009). Comparisons of average water level from satellite altimetry and in-situ data for a set of 24 lakes of various locations and sizes have been established by Crétaux et al. (2016). Accuracy has been estimated by the calculation of the Root Mean Square (RMS) of the differences between both types of data: it ranges from 3 cm for large lakes to few tens of cm for small lakes, currently achievable using nadir altimeters.

  4. 4.

    The study of ice cover in this region started in the nineteenth century using observations from coastal stations. It then became a monitoring system of the Soviet Union and measurements were collected on a regular basis using aerial surveys. After 1970s, ice-cover observations from airplane have drastically decreased for financial reason. It has then been compensated by using satellite imageries in the visible and infrared parts of the spectrum (Buharizin et al. 1992). However, these surveys from satellite imagery in the visible spectrum are strongly affected by cloud formation and cover, particularly in winter, and these types of information were consequently not dense enough to perform a full survey of ice presence over the CS. Since the mid-1980s, microwave-satellite observations, providing reliable, regular data on ice without masking from cloud, have been used. Since 1992, another source of data was from a synergy between active (radar altimetry) and passive (radiometer used to correct altimetry measurements) instruments. A discrimination method, developed and tested over the CS and the Aral Sea in Kouraev et al. (2003, 2004), was applied on the data of Topex/Poseidon, Jason-2, Jason-3 and Envisat missions. Combining results from this technique after 1992 (when the Topex/Poseidon satellite was launched) with microwave observation on SMMR and SSM/I missions allowed better spatial and temporal resolution than using satellite altimetry alone. This method has been successfully validated using independent in-situ measurements (Kouraev et al. 2003).

  5. 5.

    International treaty for the protection and sustainable use of wetlands.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank S. Kroonenberg for advice on Russian literature on CSL and K. Arpe for information on climate and providing Fig. 3.3. We are grateful to L. López-Merino for the preparation of Fig. 3.5. The work on modern biota by NVA and ISP was supported by the program of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences “No. 41. Biodiversity of natural systems and biological resources of Russia”. We are grateful to the three reviewers who have contributed to improve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, Minist Culture, LAMPEA, UMR 7269, 5 rue du Château de l’Horloge, 13094, Aix-en-Provence, France

    Suzanne A. G. Leroy

  2. Iranian National Institute for Oceanography and Atmospheric Science, #3, Etamadzadeh St., Fatemi Ave, 1411813389, Tehran, Iran

    Hamid A. K. Lahijani

  3. Laboratoire d’Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiale, UMR5566, Université de Toulouse, LEGOS/CNES, 14 Ave. Edouard Belin, 31400, Toulouse, France

    Jean-Francois Crétaux

  4. Laboratory of Brackish Water Hydrobiology, Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya nab. 1, 199034, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Nikolai V. Aladin & Igor S. Plotnikov

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  1. Suzanne A. G. Leroy
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Correspondence to Suzanne A. G. Leroy .

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    Steffen Mischke

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Leroy, S.A.G., Lahijani, H.A.K., Crétaux, JF., Aladin, N.V., Plotnikov, I.S. (2020). Past and Current Changes in the Largest Lake of the World: The Caspian Sea. In: Mischke, S. (eds) Large Asian Lakes in a Changing World. Springer Water. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42254-7_3

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