新疆水危机 干涸的坎儿井
It is an improbable journey that begins on the highest peaks of the Tianshan Mountains, where glaciAl snowmelt descends across one of the world’s most arid landscapes to reach the lush oasis communities of this ancient Silk Road outpost.
这段奇异的旅程始于天山山脉的最高峰，冰川融雪流经世界上最干旱的地貌之一，抵达古丝绸之路上这片边远居民区草木茂盛的绿洲。
Powered by gravity, the water — pure and cold — makes the entire voyage underground, traveling through scores of subterranean channels, some of them 15 miles long and 100 feet deep, that were built two thousand years ago by the pastoralists who settled this inhospitable corner of China’s far western Xinjiang region.
在重力势能的作用下，纯净冰凉的水流在地下完成了整段旅程，穿过数十条地表之下的渠道。其中有些渠道达20公里长、30米深，由2000年前在中国最西面这片不适宜居住的地方安顿下来的游牧民族修建而成。
Known as karez, the system of channels is an engineering marvel that has long fascinated scientists and filled this city’s ethnic Uighurs with pride.
这种渠道系统名为坎儿井，是一项工程奇迹，一直让科学家为之惊叹，也令吐鲁番的维吾尔人充满了自豪之情。
Our ancestors were amazing because they built these without machines, said Salayidin Nejemdin, 29, whose family has been growing grapes in Turpan for generations.
我们的祖先很了不起，他们建这些的时候没用机械工具，现年29岁的萨拉伊丁•奈杰迈丁(Salayidin Nejemdin)说。他的家族世世代代在吐鲁番种葡萄。
Without them, we would not be able to live in such a harsh place.
没有它们，我们没有办法在这种严酷的地方生存。
But after millenniums of nourishing the region’s farmers, goat herders and cross-continental traders, the karez channels of Turpan are drying up.
几千年来，坎儿井滋养了当地的农民、牧羊人和跨越大陆的商人，如今却在逐渐干涸。
Although scientists say global warming has shrunk the glaciers that feed the elaborate irrigation system, the more immediate threat is the soaring demand for water from the petroleum drillers and industrial-scale farmers, who are sucking the Turpan Basin dry.
尽管科学家表示全球变暖让为这一复杂灌溉系统提供水源的冰川不断退缩，但更紧迫的威胁是飙升的用水需求——石油开采和工业化农业生产在将吐鲁番盆地抽干。
There are just over 200 working karez in the region, down from nearly 1,800 in the 1950s, according to government figures.
根据政府公布的数据，该地区目前仅有200出头正在使用的坎儿井，而50年代有近1800口。
Every year, as many as a dozen of the underground tunnels run dry.
每一年，都有十多条地下渠道干涸。
Others, contaminated by oil, are abandoned.
还有一些因为油污而遭废弃。
Shalamu Abudu, a hydrology expert at Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center at El Paso who has written extensively about Turpan’s hand-dug tunnels, said their disappearance threatens a way of life that has persevered against all odds.
德克萨斯农机大学艾尔帕索农业生活研究中心(Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center at El Paso)的水文专家沙拉木•阿不都(Shalamu Abudu)在吐鲁番手工挖掘的渠道方面著述颇丰。他表示，坎儿井的消失威胁到历尽艰险得以保存的一种生活方式。
Turpan, he noted, occupies one of the world’s hottest locales: a parched depression, devoid of rivers, that receives less than a half-inch of water a year.
他指出，吐鲁番坐落在世界上最热的地区之一：干燥的盆地、地表没有河流，每年的降水量不足半英寸。
The karez is a symbol of our civilization, said Mr Abudu, a Uighur who until recently worked for the state-run Xinjiang Water Resources Research Institute.
坎儿井是我们文明的一个象征，阿不都说。他不久前还在国有的新疆水利水电科学研究院工作。
It is something we feel very emotional about.
我们对这个很有感情。
The water helps sustain the region’s half-million residents and ensures that Turpan’s family farms can grow the grapes that have shaped the city’s identity for centuries.
这一水源帮助养活了该地区的50万居民，并且保障吐鲁番的家庭农场能够种植千百年来塑造了当地特色的作物——葡萄。
Grape arbors grace nearly every home here, and the rural landscape is dotted with imposing brick-and-mud drying towers, where the grapes are turned into raisins.
这里几乎家家户户都有葡萄架，乡村地区满是高大的砖泥晾房，葡萄会在里面变成葡萄干。
Standing beneath a tangle of grape vines, Mijiti Saludin, 32, said he and his wife were forced to buy water from the municipal government after the karez across from their home ran dry several years ago.
现年32岁的米吉提•萨鲁丁(Mijiti Saludin)站在葡萄藤下说，经过家里的坎儿井几年前干了之后，他们夫妇被迫从市政府那里买水。
We used to get it for free, but now we have to pay for our water and it isn’t very clean, he said.
我们以前取水不要钱，现在得花钱买自己的水，也不是很干净。
He led a visitor to an opening in the chalky gray earth, and into a tunnel just tall enough to crouch inside.
他带着访客来到一片灰白土壤上的空地，进入仅够俯身通过的一条窄渠。
When he was a child, he recalled, the entire community would turn out each spring to clean out the karez, using buckets to remove silt that impeded the flow of water.
他回忆，小时候，整个社区都会每年春天出来清理坎儿井，一桶一桶地淘阻滞水流的泥沙。
Every family would send a young man, but now it’s hard to get people to work for free, he said.
每家每户都会出一名青壮年。但是现在很难再让人免费干活了，他说。
The Chinese government recognizes the threat to the region’s karez, and in recent years it has sought to ban the drilling of new wells that have contributed to a steady drop of the water table.
中国政府承认吐鲁番坎儿井面临的威胁，近年来试图禁止挖掘新井的行为，因为它们对地下水位的不断下降起到了促进作用。
In 2008, the regional government announced a $182 million project, funded in part by the World Bank, to protect and rehabilitate the system.
在2008年，地区政府宣布了一个耗资12亿元人民币的项目，用来保护并修复坎儿井系统，其中部分资金来自世界银行(World Bank)。
According to government estimates, the aquifer beneath the Turpan Basin shrinks by about three million cubic meters a year, much of it because of oil drilling and agriculture.
根据政府的估算，吐鲁番盆地下方的蓄水层每年大约缩减300万立方米，其中不少是因为石油开采与农业用水。
Despite efforts to keep the karez system alive, some officials appear resigned to their demise.
尽管采取了挽救坎儿井的措施，但一些官员似乎接受了它们终将消亡的命运。
There is no need to make a fuss about the drying of the karez, Lu Zhen, the former head of the water resources research institute, told the state-run People’s Daily newspaper.
对坎儿井干涸完全不必大惊小怪，吐鲁番地区水利勘察设计院前院长卢震告诉官媒《人民日报》。
It is a historical certainty that the karez be replaced.
被取代是历史的必然。
The origins of Turpan’s karez are unclear, though experts note their similarity to the underground qanat, or canals, found in Iran, Iraq and water-starved swaths of Central Asia.
吐鲁番坎儿井的起源并不清楚，不过专家指出，它与伊朗、伊拉克及中亚缺水地区发现的名为卡纳特的地下暗渠有相似之处。
Given Turpan’s role as a vital pit stop on the northern route of the Silk Road, Dr Abudu of Texas A&M said the technology was probably introduced by Persian traders and then improved upon by local Uighurs.
鉴于吐鲁番曾是丝绸之路北线上的重要补给站，德克萨斯农机大学的阿不都博士认为，这项技术很可能由波斯商人传入，后来又经过了当地维吾尔人的改进。
Although the length and method of construction of Turpan’s karez are different from others, the basic principles of how they work is the same, he said.
虽然吐鲁番坎儿井的长度和建造方法与众不同，但它们的基本工作原理是一样的，他说。
Those principles are at once simple and impossibly complex.
这些原理既简单，又极为复杂。
Most karez start at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains, tapping into subterranean aquifers fed by glacial runoff.
多数坎儿井始于天山脚下，从冰川径流补充的地下蓄水层中汲取水源。
There are underground dams and reservoirs, but a notable hallmark of the system are vertical wells, dug every few dozen feet, that provide access to the channels and allow for maintenance and ventilation.
这一系统包含地下水坝与水库，但最重要的标志建筑是竖井，每隔几十英尺挖掘一口井，从而提供进出渠道的口子，同时有利于维护与通风。
Viewed from the air, the wellheads look like oversized anthills pocking the expanse of lifeless desert.
从空中望去，这些井看起来像是在杳无人烟的大片沙漠里星星点点的巨大蚁冢。
By constructing the system entirely underground, its creators sought to shield the water from animal droppings, silt and the evaporating power of the sun, which regularly send the summertime temperatures above 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
通过完全在地下建造系统，坎儿井的发明者希望让水源远离动物粪便、泥沙和利于蒸发的炙热阳光。太阳常常让吐鲁番的夏季气温接近50摄氏度。
Residents share a deep reverence for the karez, and they try to enforce rules that bar bathing or washing clothes directly in the waterways.
当地居民对坎儿井有着很深的感情，还在尽力执行禁止在水渠中沐浴或洗衣服的规则。
In the winter it’s warm and in the summer it’s cool, said Mr Nejemdin, the farmer, as he walked down stairs that provide access to a rushing underground stream that skirts the edge of his family’s compact farmstead, a traditional walled compound shaded by mulberry trees and grape-laden trellises.
坎儿井冬暖夏凉，种葡萄的奈杰迈丁说。他走下阶梯，另一头通往他家小农庄边上的一条地下急流。这座传统农庄四面围了起来，因为桑树和硕果累累的葡萄架而颇为荫凉。
The city government recently installed a pipeline to bring water to his neighborhood from a distant reservoir, but Mr Nejemdin said his family preferred to use water from the karez.
市政府近期修了一条管道从远处的水库送水到他家这片地方。不过奈杰迈丁表示，他们家更喜欢用坎儿井取水。
The piped water tastes like medicine, he said.
管子里的水喝起来有药味，他说。
With so many karez drying up, he said it was a matter of time before he was forced to buy water from the city.
有这么多的坎儿井在逐渐干涸，他表示自家早晚要被迫从市里买水。
The thought made him scowl.
这件事让他很生气。
Our ancestors were so smart, banding together to solve the water problem, he said, but these days, being smart is not enough to keep our traditions alive.
我们的老祖宗这么聪明，团结起来解决水的问题，他说，但是现在呢，光是聪明还不能保住我们的传统。
