摘要: Justification of Outstanding Universal Value　　Criterion (ix): The component parts of the proposed transnational World Heritage Site “Cold winter deserts of Turan” reflect the diversity of geomorpholog

Justification of Outstanding Universal Value

　　Criterion (ix): The component parts of the proposed transnational World Heritage Site “Cold winter deserts of Turan” reflect the diversity of geomorphological types of deserts, as outcome of ongoing processes of land surface formation. They contain most of the desert landforms as Goudy and Seely (2011) lists, among them dunes, pans, cavernous weathering forms, desert varnishes and rinds, lake basins with paleo shorelines, inselbergs, groundwater sapping, and including those not represented in World Heritage sites yet, like: dust storms and deflation surfaces, gypsum crusts, calcium carbonate crusts, salts and salt weathering, relict profiles, ancient river systems, alluvial fans, debris flows and natural arches. The diversity of desert landforms and ongoing land forming processes is reflected by corresponding communities of plants and animals, which are in ongoing processes of adaptation to changing ecological extreme conditions. These are characterized by cold winter with low precipitation, and by hot and dry summer, by sometimes strong wind with physical effects to plants and animals. In long-time and ongoing evolution, they developed different survival strategies.

　　All of the plant and animal species have incredible adaptation strategies, including morphological, physiological and behavioural, to the hostile environmental conditions of deserts. Organisms exploit favourable micro-climates within the desert ecosystem, no matter how unpredictable. Ephemerality and micro-climate exploitation are found in many desert plants. Specifically plant morphology, provides manifold diversity of lifeforms, many of them endemic to the Turanian, as well as xeromorphic structures like reduced leaves, extensive or deep roots, succulent and woody sprouts are typical adaptation strategies of plants. For each of the desert ecosystems of the Turanian there are typical vegetation communities.

　　Woodland of Saxaul (Haloxylon persicum and Haloxylon ammodendron (syn. H. aphyllum)) is one of the most distinctive and significant ecosystems of the cold winter deserts of Turan. These two only species of the genus Haloxylon, which is endemic in Central Asia, form large scale woody vegetation in sandy areas, all over the Turanian region from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan. According to Rachkovskaya (2003) about 500.000 km2 is the natural distribution area of these both species. Saxaul woodland is the most significant example for ongoing carbon sequestration and storage in deserts ecosystems (Thevs et al., 2013).

　　Gravel deserts are characterized by sparsely vegetation of life forms with deep woody roots and reduced sukkulent sprouts, like Anabasis ssp. (Chenopodiaceae). In salt pans and solonchak deserts woody and herbal sukkulents like Salicornia ssp. and Suaeda ssp. dominate the plant cover. Populus euphratica forms the azonal riparian forests in river floodplains.  

　　One of the special features of the cold winter deserts of Turan are ephemeral deserts, they represent an endemic form of desert ecosystems. Ephemeral plants depend on winter precipitation and ideally on loess substrates. During the shortest period between March and May the deserts starting to flourish and thus become an eye-catching event for a very short period before they disappear for one year to a yellowish, dry landscape. Annual plants and herbal geophytes use the short spring season (water from low winter precipitation, warming with increasing sun stand) for their life cycle (grow, bloom, fruit and outlast the dry hot summer and cold winter as seeds (annual plants) or in underground storage organs (bulbs, tubers of geophytes).

　　Not only plant species and vegetation adapt to the extreme life conditions of cold winter deserts, but also animals developed special survival strategies. Goudy and Seely (2011) state similarly, plant and arthropod cuticle, vertebrate integument and pelage and animal colouration present a variety of morphological adaptations. Water storage, ectopic fat storage and the shape and size of desert organisms are important adaptations for desert animals. Morphological adaptations are as varied as the diversity of desert ecosystems, but all contribute, in one way or another, toward tolerance of desert environments and the diversity of life they support.

　　Physiological and behavioural adaptations are also wide-ranging. These include tolerance of tissue to high temperatures, tolerance to dehydration, tolerance to cold – a specific pecularity of cold winter deserts, compared with hot deserts – adaptive heterothermy and behavioural thermoregulation. It is the myriad combinations of morphological, physiological and behavioural adaptations that have evolved in these diverse desert ecosystems that contribute to the high and varied biodiversity and endemism of the Turanian deserts. Animal adaptations to life in deserts are as varied as those of plants and often act in concert. Mobile and transboundary animal migrations such as movements of goitered gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa subgutturosa), kulan (Equus hemionus kulan), saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica) and urial (Ovis vignei), are a behavioural response to the changing habitat conditions in the course of the annual phenological circle. Specifically the migration of the ungulates justifies the occasionally occuring comparison of the Turanian cold winter deserts as the „Serengeti of the North“. Other approaches to deal with hot and arid seasons may take refuge in burrows or simply beneath the sand.

　　The herpetofauna is particularly species-rich in the cold winter deserts of Turan, with the flagship species the desert monitor (Varanus griseus). Typical representatives of sandy deserts are toad-headed agamas (Phrynocephalus), Eversmann’s gecko, Turkestan plate-tailed gecko, racerunners (Eremias ssp.) and sand boas (Eryx ssp.) (Rustamov, 2007).

　　Criterion (x): Overall in Turanian deserts approx. 1.600 plant species can be found, there of 246 Chenopodiaceae (15%), 148 leguminous plants (9%) and Cruciferae (6%). They are a diversity center of several genera, specialized to cold winter desert conditions. There are more than 100 species of Artemisia, 67 of Calligonum, 54 species of Salsola, 31 species of Zygophyllum, 26 species of Ammodendron as well as 22 species of Limonium (Schroeder, 1998).

　　As the justification for the criterion (ix) already suggests the Turanian cold winter deserts provide the full assemblage of species and desert landforms and are as such outstanding in its complexity but also in its huge dimensions. The Haloxylon formed sandy deserts alone make up an area of 500.000 km2. The desert landscapes formed of loess, clay, gravel, gypseous, salt and riparian come on top of it. West (1983) states that the Central Asian cold winter deserts “are by far the largest in area” [compared to cold winter deserts in North and South America]. The sheer size of their area contributes to the opportunity for great diversity in all aspects of ecosystem structure and function. According to Magin (2005) and Lethier (2020), the cold winter deserts have unique ecological qualities, support numerous endemic species and, particulary the sand deserts, support great biodiversity. Central Asian desert ecosystems are part of WWF Global 200 priority ecoregions, the global “hotspots” with the highest demand for common conservation efforts. Olson and Dinerstein (2002) assess the temperate deserts ecosystems as “critical or endangered”.

　　Therefore, the existence of large and well protected areas to protect the fundamental ecological and biological processes in each of the desert landscapes as transnational component parts of one Turanian cold winter desert World Heritage Site is committing to this unique and outstanding part of the world.