Altay Kokesu Wetland National Nature Reserve: Protected Wetland Geography and Landscape Map

The reserve is best known for being the largest wetland within the Altay grasslands, a complex mosaic of marshes, floodplains, salt-alkali flats, meadows, deserts, and forest patches coexisting on patchy soils within a narrow desert plain. It is also recognized for the hydrological interplay between the Irtysh and Kran rivers, whose seasonal floods sustain a winter-cold, summer-warm refuge for waterbirds, raptors, and endemic plant species such as Altay hawthorn, Burqin willow, and Altay water caltrop.

The Kokesu wetland has long been shaped by Irtysh and Kran River dynamics, but its formal protection history is relatively recent. The area was first designated in 2001, when the People's Government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region established the Altay Kokesu Wetland Nature Reserve as a provincial-level protective unit, with administration vested in the regional forestry authorities.

In 2017, the State Council of the People's Republic of China upgraded the reserve to a national-level nature reserve, reflecting its growing ecological importance and the increasing pressure from human activity in the surrounding region. The upgrading also aligned the reserve with a broader national emphasis on safeguarding key wetlands and their associated species.

Alongside the designation milestones, practical conservation engineering began earlier with the 2007 launch of the Kokesu wetland ecological protection and restoration project. Using river weirs, spring flood diversion, and cross-basin water reallocation, the project sought to replenish the wetland during critical dry periods. By 2010, forage production within the wetland had begun to recover.

A complementary ecological resettlement program, initiated in 2006, gradually relocated herding households from the core area of the reserve. A notable milestone came in September 2021, when more than 260 households living in the core zone were moved into newly built housing. Together, these measures form the backbone of the reserve's modern management history and frame its ongoing challenge of balancing hydrological protection with the legacy of long-term grazing and land use in the Kokesu basin.

The reserve is set in a long, narrow desert plain that runs roughly northwest to southeast, sandwiched between the Altai Mountains to the north and the Junggar Basin to the south. Although the broader setting is arid, the convergence of the Irtysh and Kran rivers creates a corridor of moisture, sediment, and seasonal flooding that supports wetland development on a scale unusual for the region.

Geographically, the protected area stretches about 24 kilometers east to west and more than 20 kilometers north to south, with an average elevation around 490 meters, making it the lowest-lying portion of the surrounding Altay terrain. The Irtysh River crosses the southern edge of the reserve, flowing west, while the Kran River dissipates across the northern part of the wetland, losing its defined channel and spreading water across marshes, floodplains, and salt-alkali flats before its flow eventually rejoins the Irtysh downstream.

The interplay of rivers, soils, and topography creates a striking landscape mosaic within a relatively small area. Sandy desert patches, steppe, meadow, marsh, and even small forest stands can occur side by side, supported by patchy distributions of brown calcareous, meadow, aeolian sandy, and bog soils. The result is a transitional landscape where arid and semi-arid features of the Junggar Basin meet the wetter conditions generated by snowmelt and river overflow from the Altai Mountains.

The reserve's ecological identity is defined by the unusual coexistence of desert, steppe, meadow, marsh, salt-alkali flat, and forest habitats within a single protected area. Soil moisture gradients across the wetland drive this diversity, producing patchy mosaics of brown calcareous soil, meadow soil, aeolian sand soil, and bog soil. These contrasting substrates support complex vegetation communities that range from drought-tolerant desert and steppe species to moisture-loving wetland and meadow plants.

The documented vascular flora includes around 551 species distributed across 259 genera and 65 families, encompassing ferns, gymnosperms, and angiosperms. Asteraceae, Poaceae, Chenopodiaceae, Cyperaceae, Polygonaceae, Ranunculaceae, Brassicaceae, Fabaceae, Lamiaceae, and Salicaceae are among the dominant plant families, while the genus Artemisia is the most species-rich. Geographically, the flora is dominated by northern temperate elements, with notable contributions from Old World temperate, Mediterranean, and West-to-Central Asian distributions, reflecting the reserve's position at a crossroads of continental biogeographic influences.

Several endemic species are restricted to the Kokesu wetland system, including the Burqin willow, Altay water caltrop, and Altay hawthorn. The combination of structural habitat diversity, varied soils, and seasonal water pulses makes the reserve a critical biodiversity node within an otherwise arid regional setting, bridging the ecological character of the Altai mountain slopes with the dry lowlands of the Junggar Basin.

Wildlife in the reserve reflects its position at the meeting point of three major ecological zones: temperate marshland, temperate desert-steppe, and temperate forest. Snakes such as the red-backed rat snake and waterbirds like the little egret represent the marshland fauna, while skylarks and Mongolian hares represent the desert-steppe community, and hoopoes and sable represent the forest-based fauna. Together, these groups illustrate how a relatively compact area can support animal communities typical of very different habitat types.

Birds form the dominant vertebrate group, with 183 documented species across 36 families and 14 orders, including taxa from Falconiformes, Charadriiformes, and Anseriformes. More than half of the bird species are summer visitors, with roughly a quarter resident year-round, and the remainder made up of passage migrants and winter visitors. The reserve's avifauna represents a typical Palaearctic assemblage with relatively few species but a rich diversity of families and genera.

The reserve supports a significant number of nationally protected animals. Nine species are listed under China's highest national protection category (Class I), including the sable, black stork, great bustard, little bustard, macqueen's bustard, golden eagle, white-shouldered eagle, white-tailed eagle, and bearded vulture. An additional 39 species, such as the snow hare, Eurasian lynx, goitered gazelle, white pelican, whooper swan, hen harrier, saker falcon, merlin, and common kestrel, are listed under Class II national protection, while 126 species, including the green toad, long-eared hedgehog, and great tit, are listed under China's 'Three Categories of Protected Animals' framework. The fish fauna includes 22 species across 8 families and 5 orders, and the reserve also hosts reptiles, amphibians, and at least 238 insect species from 66 families.

The reserve's conservation story is shaped by the vulnerability of a wetland system sitting at the dry edge of its climatic envelope. Its very existence depends on snowmelt pulses from the Altai Mountains and the hydrology of the Irtysh and Kran rivers, conditions that are increasingly stressed by long-term aridity, regional warming, and direct human pressures including water projects, land reclamation, overgrazing, and unregulated harvest of wild plants and animals. As these pressures intensified in the decades before formal protection, the wetland began to show signs of desertification, placing endangered plants such as salt birch, Ertix knotweed, snow-white water lily, and the Altay water caltrop at risk of local extinction, while bird and fish numbers continued to fall.

The 2001 establishment of the Altay Kokesu Wetland Nature Reserve by the Xinjiang regional government marked the first formal recognition that the wetland required active management. In 2017, the State Council elevated the site to national-level status, a step that strengthened administrative oversight and legal protection. Practical habitat restoration followed earlier, beginning with the 2007 launch of an ecological protection and restoration project that used river weirs, spring flood diversion, and cross-basin water transfers to seasonally recharge the wetland, with documented increases in forage production by 2010.

Complementing hydrological restoration, an ecological resettlement program begun in 2006 has gradually moved herding families out of the core area of the reserve, with a major milestone reached in September 2021 when more than 260 households were relocated to newly built housing. Together, these measures aim to reduce grazing pressure, restore natural hydrological cycles, and protect the regulatory and refuge functions the wetland performs for migratory waterbirds, raptors, endemic plants, and freshwater fauna within the broader dryland ecosystem of the Junggar Basin and Altai foothills.

The reserve's cultural context is rooted in the long-established pastoral economy of the Irtysh valley, where herding communities have traditionally used the Kokesu wetlands as seasonal grazing land. This deep entanglement between local livelihoods and wetland ecology shaped both the ecological pressures and the human geography that the reserve now seeks to manage.

The 2006 initiation of ecological resettlement, culminating in the 2021 relocation of more than 260 households from the reserve's core zone, marks a significant cultural transition. The relocation program represents a deliberate effort to re-balance centuries of grazing-based land use with the conservation needs of a nationally protected wetland, moving resident households into new settlements while gradually restoring ecological function to the most sensitive parts of the reserve.

Altay Kokesu Wetland National Nature Reserve's most distinctive qualities include its status as the largest wetland of the Altay grasslands and its ability to compress an unusual habitat mosaic into a single nationally protected unit. Desert, steppe, meadow, marsh, salt-alkali flat, and forest all coexist within its roughly 307-square-kilometer boundary, made possible by patchy soil mosaics and the hydrological interaction of the Irtysh and Kran rivers.

The reserve is also distinguished by the seasonal drama of its spring snowmelt floods, which rapidly swell the wetland's open water and recharge its soils, sustaining globally significant bird populations and endemic plant species such as Burqin willow, Altay water caltrop, and Altay hawthorn. Combined with a Class I protected species roster that includes the black stork, golden eagle, white-shouldered eagle, and great bustard, these features make the reserve a critical refuge at the interface between the Altai Mountains and the Junggar Basin.

The most visually and ecologically dynamic period in the reserve is spring, when snowmelt from the Altai Mountains swells the Irtysh River and floodwaters back up into the Kokesu system. During this season the wetland's open water area expands rapidly, waterfowl and migratory birds become most active, and the landscape shows its fullest range of wet conditions.

Summer brings warm temperatures and the highest concentration of summer-breeding birds, while the surrounding steppe and meadow habitats are at their most vegetatively expressive. Winter is harsh, with recorded temperatures falling below minus 40 degrees Celsius, and is generally not conducive to comfortable exploration. The transitional spring and early-to-mid summer months therefore offer the most rewarding combination of active hydrology, rich birdlife, and relatively accessible weather for those interested in the wetland's defining character.