The photo below shows the dense series of irrigation canals of the delta of the Amu Darya which are visible due to the reflection of sunlight off the surface of the water. The river provides life-giving water to crops on the Amu Darya Delta (dark green). The river originates thousand of kilometers to the southeast in the Pamir Mountains (Tajikistan/Afghanistan) and flows across the arid Turanian plain and eventually deposits into the Aral Sea, an inland drainage basin. Before entering the Aral it forms a vast delta (see image below). The primary crops produced on the Amu Darya Delta is cotton and rice both water-intensive. The lower Amu Darya irrigated agriculture and relatively dense population. It is an ethnically mixed population being inhabited by Uzbeks, Karakalpaks, Kazakhs and Turkmen.
