Editing Amu Darya (section)

==Description==
{{More citations needed section|date=February 2021}}
[[File:Amudaryamap.jpg|thumb|250px|left|Map of the Amu Darya watershed]]

The river's total length is {{convert|2400|km|mi}} and its drainage basin totals {{convert|534739|km2|sqmi}} in area, providing a mean discharge of around {{convert|97.4|km3|cumi}}<ref name="utexas"/> of water per year. The river is navigable for over {{convert|1450|km|mi}}. All of the water comes from the high mountains in the south where annual [[precipitation]] can be over {{convert|1000|mm|in|abbr=on}}. Even before large-scale irrigation began, high summer evaporation meant that not all of this discharge reached the [[Aral Sea]] – though there is some evidence the large Pamir [[glacier]]s provided enough [[meltwater]] for the Aral to overflow during the 13th and 14th centuries.

Since the end of the 19th century, there have been four different claimants as the true source of the Oxus:
* The [[Pamir River]], which emerges from Lake [[Zorkul]] (once also known as Lake Victoria) in the [[Pamir Mountains]] (ancient [[Mount Imeon]]), and flows west to [[Qalʽeh-ye Panjeh|Qila-e Panja]], where it joins the [[Wakhan River]] to form the [[Panj River]].
* The Sarhad or [[Little Pamir]] River flowing down the Little Pamir in the High [[Wakhan]]
* Lake Chamaktin, which discharges to the east into the [[Bartang River|Aksu River]], which in turn becomes the [[Murghab River (Tajikistan)|Murghab]] and then [[Bartang River|Bartang]] rivers, and which eventually joins the Panj Oxus branch 350&nbsp;km downstream at Roshan Vomar in Tajikistan.
* An [[ice cave]] at the end of the [[Wakhjir]] valley, in the [[Wakhan Corridor]], in the [[Pamir Mountains]], near the border with [[Pakistan]].

[[File:Afghanistan - Tajikistan Bridge Completion.jpg|thumb|[[Tajikistan–Afghanistan bridge at Panji Poyon|Afghanistan-Tajikistan]] bridge over the Darya]]
A glacier turns into the [[Wakhan River]] and joins the Pamir River about {{convert|50|km}} downstream.<ref>{{citation |author1=Mock, J. |author2=O'Neil, K. |year=2004 |url=http://www.mockandoneil.com/stg04r3.htm#oxus |title=Expedition Report }}</ref> Bill Colegrave's expedition to Wakhan in 2007 found that both claimants 2 and 3 had the same source, the Chelab stream, which bifurcates on the watershed of the Little Pamir, half flowing into Lake Chamaktin and half into the parent stream of the Little Pamir/Sarhad River. Therefore, the Chelab stream may be properly considered the true source or parent stream of the Oxus.<ref>{{cite book|last=Colegrave|first=Bill|title=Halfway House to Heaven|year=2011|publisher=Bene Factum Publishing|location=London|isbn=978-1-903071-28-1|pages=176|url=http://bene-factum.co.uk/product/halfway-house-to-heaven/|access-date=2018-11-06|archive-date=2018-11-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181106171811/http://bene-factum.co.uk/product/halfway-house-to-heaven/|url-status=dead}}</ref> The Panj River forms the border of [[Afghanistan]] and [[Tajikistan]]. It flows west to [[Ishkashim, Afghanistan|Ishkashim]] where it turns north and then north-west through the [[Pamirs]] passing the [[Tajikistan–Afghanistan bridge at Panji Poyon|Tajikistan–Afghanistan Friendship Bridge]]. It subsequently forms the border of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan for about {{convert|200|km}}, passing [[Termez]] and the [[Afghanistan–Uzbekistan Friendship Bridge]]. It delineates the border of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan for another {{convert|100|km}} before it flows into Turkmenistan at [[Atamurat]]. It flows across Turkmenistan south to north, passing [[Türkmenabat]], and forms the border of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan from Halkabat. It is then split by the [[Tuyamuyun Hydro Complex]] into many waterways that used to form the [[river delta]] joining the Aral Sea, passing [[Urgench]], [[Daşoguz]], and other cities, but it does not reach what is left of the sea any more and is lost in the desert. Use of water from the Amu Darya for [[irrigation]] has been a major contributing factor to the shrinking of the Aral Sea since the late 1950s. Historical records state that in different periods, the river flowed into the [[Aral Sea]] (from the south), into the [[Caspian Sea]] (from the east), or both, similar to the [[Syr Darya]] (Jaxartes, in [[Ancient Greek]]). Partly based on such records, first [[Russian Empire|Tsarist]] and later [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] engineers proposed to divert the Amu Darya to the Caspian Sea by constructing the [[Transcaspian Canal]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Peterson |first1=Maya K. |title=Pipe Dreams: Water and Empire in Central Asia's Aral Sea Basin |date=2019 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge, United Kingdom |isbn=978-1-108-46854-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l3GSDwAAQBAJ}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kadyrov |first1=Abrar |title=Дума о воде – взгляд в былое и немного о будущем |date=2011 |publisher=Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia |location=Tashkent |url=http://www.cawater-info.net/library/rus/kadyrov_2011_ru.pdf |access-date=4 April 2024 |language=Russian}}</ref>