The Great Lakes Depression ( mn, Их нууруудын хотгор, ''Ikh Nuuruudyn Khotgor''), also called the Great Lakes' Hollow, is a large

semi-arid A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-ar ...

depression in

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

that covers parts of the

Uvs Uvs (; mn, Увс аймаг, Uws aimag, ; xal, Увс әәмг, Uws äämg, ), is one of the 21 aimags (provinces) of Mongolia. It is located in the west of the country, away from the national capital Ulaanbaatar. Its capital is Ulaangom whi ...

, Khovd, Bayan-Ölgii, Zavkhan and

Govi-Altai Govi-Altai ( mn, Говь-Алтай / , ) is an aimag (province) in western Mongolia. Transportation The Altai Airport (LTI/ZMAT) has one paved runway and is served by regular flights to Arvaikheer, Bayankhongor and Ulaanbaatar. The new arriva ...

aimag An aimag (, ; xal, әәмг, ), originally a Mongolian word meaning 'tribe', is an administrative subdivision in Mongolia, Russia, and in the Inner Mongolia region of China. Mongolia In Mongolia, an aimag is the first-level administrative ...

s''. Bounded by the Altai in the West, Khangai in the East and

Tannu-Ola Mountains The Tannu-Ola mountains ( tyv, Таңды-Уула, ''Tañdı-Uula'', uniturk, Taᶇdь-Uula, – Tangdy-Uula mountains; mn, Тагнын нуруу, ''Tağnîn nurú'', , russian: Танну-Ола, ) is a mountain range in southern Siberia, i ...

in the North, it covers the area of over with elevations from . Small northern parts of the depression are part of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

."Great Lakes Depression"
''

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 ...

'' The depression is named so because it contains six major Mongolian lakes: saline

Uvs Nuur Uvs Lake ( mn, Увс нуур, Uws nuur, ; russian: Озеро Убсу-Нур, Ozero Ubsu-Nur; zh, 乌布苏湖, wū bù sū hú, pinyin: ''Wū Bù Sū hú'') is a highly saline lake in an endorheic basin—Uvs Nuur Basin in Mongolia with a s ...

Khyargas Nuur Khyargas Lake Хяргас нуур, is a salt lake in Khyargas district, Uvs Province, Western Mongolia. Some sources are using different Khyargas Lake statistics values: *Water level: 1,035.29 m *Surface area: 1,481.1 km2 *Average depth ...

and Dörgön Nuur; and

freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...

Khar-Us Nuur Khar-Us Lake ( mn, Хар-Ус нуур, Har-Us nuur; "Black-Aqua Lake", zh, 哈尔乌斯湖, 黑水湖) is a lake in western Mongolia in the Great Lakes Depression. It is the upper one in a system of the interconnected lakes: Khar-Us, Khar, Dö ...

, Khar Nuur and

Airag Nuur Airag Lake ( mn, Айраг нуур, Airag Nuur, ) is a lake in western Mongolia in the Great Lakes Depression. It is in a system of the interconnected lakes: Khar-Us, Khar, Dörgön, and Khyargas. The lake was in the same basin as the Khya ...

, as well as a number of smaller ones. In addition, it includes of ''

solonchak Solonchak (Russian and Ukrainian: Солончак) is a Reference Soil Group of the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB). It is a pale or grey soil type found in arid to subhumid, poorly drained conditions. The word is Russian for "sal ...

s'' and large

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of s ...

y areas. Northern parts are dominated by arid steppes, and southern by semideserts or deserts. The major rivers are

Khovd River Khovd River ( mn, Ховд гол, Howd gol, ) is a river in Mongolia. It flows from Tavan Bogd mountain of the Altai Mountains The Altai Mountains (), also spelled Altay Mountains, are a mountain range in Central and East Asia, where Russia ...

Zavkhan Gol Zavkhan River ( mn, Завхан гол, Zawhan gol, ) is a river in Mongolia. It flows from Khangai Mountains to Lake Khyargas, and has a draining area of over . The river forms most of the border between the Govi-Altai and Zavkhan aimags. T ...

, and

Tesiin Gol The Tes River ( Mongolian: Тэс гол; tyv, Тес-Хем; zh, 特斯河, 特斯高勒) is a river in northwestern Mongolia and southern Tuva, Russia. Its spring is in Tsagaan-Uul sum in Khövsgöl. The river then flows through Zavkhan (Mo ...

Ecology

The depression is a major

basin of Mongolia and contains important

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

s of

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

. The wetlands are based on the system of interconnected shallow lakes with wide

reed Reed or Reeds may refer to: Science, technology, biology, and medicine * Reed bird (disambiguation) * Reed pen, writing implement in use since ancient times * Reed (plant), one of several tall, grass-like wetland plants of the order Poales * ...

belts within a generally

desert A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About on ...

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 grasslands, ...

. The wetlands support a number of rare migrating birds:

Eurasian spoonbill The Eurasian spoonbill (''Platalea leucorodia''), or common spoonbill, is a wading bird of the ibis and spoonbill family Threskiornithidae. The genus name ''Platalea'' is from Latin and means "broad", referring to the distinctive shape of the b ...

(''Platalea leucorodia''),

black stork The black stork (''Ciconia nigra'') is a large bird in the stork family Ciconiidae. It was first described by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of his ''Systema Naturae''. Measuring on average from beak tip to end of tail with a wingspan, t ...

(''Ciconia nigra''),

osprey The osprey (''Pandion haliaetus''), , also called sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor reaching more than in length and across the wings. It is brown o ...

(''Pandion haliaetus''),

white-tailed eagle The white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla'') is a very large species of sea eagle widely distributed across temperate Palearctic, Eurasia. Like all eagles, it is a member of the family Accipitridae (or accipitrids) which includes other diur ...

(''Haliaeetus albicilla''),

swan goose The swan goose (''Anser cygnoides'') is a large goose with a natural breeding range in inland Mongolia, northernmost China, and the Russian Far East. It is migratory and winters mainly in central and eastern China. Vagrant birds are encountered ...

(''Cygnopsis cygnoides''), and

bar-headed goose The bar-headed goose (''Anser indicus'') is a goose that breeds in Central Asia in colonies of thousands near mountain lakes and winters in South Asia, as far south as peninsular India. It lays three to eight eggs at a time in a ground nest. It ...

(''Anser indicus''). Only a few individuals of

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. ...

(''Pelecanus onocrotalus'') remain in the Great Lakes Basin in Mongolia. They nest in catchment areas of rivers and lakes that have abundant fish and vegetation. Although the total number of fish species in the region is low, a large percentage of those that do occur are

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

or near-endemic, especially from the genera ''

Oreoleuciscus ''Oreoleuciscus'' is a genus of medium to large cyprinid freshwater fish which is only found in Mongolia and adjacent parts of Russia. Species There are currently four recognized species in this genus: * ''Oreoleuciscus angusticephalus'' Boguts ...

'' (Altai osmans), ''

Thymallus ''Thymallus'' is a genus of freshwater fish in the salmon family Salmonidae; it is the only genus of subfamily Thymallinae. The type species is ''Thymallus thymallus,'' the grayling. The species in the genus are generically called graylings, but ...

'' (graylings) and ''

Triplophysa ''Triplophysa'' is a genus of fish in the family Nemacheilidae found mainly in and around the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China. Currently, the genus is a mixed assemblage of species. Some lineages have been identified and treated as subgenera (''H ...

'' (a stone loach genus).Freshwater Ecoregions of the World:
Western Mongolia.
'' Retrieved 15 February 2017.

References

External links

computer visualization generated from satellite data, showing (from front to back) Dörgön Nuur, Khar Nuur, Khovd,

, and

, as well as Üüreg Nuur left of Uvs Nuur. The green line on the left is the valley of the Khovd Gol with

and

Achit Nuur Achit Lake ( mn, Ачит Нуур, , zh, 阿奇特湖) is the largest freshwater lake in Uvs Aimag (Uvs province), Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in Ea ...

. {{Authority control Depressions of Mongolia Depressions of Russia