- hot-spots
- drying
- Kazakhstan
- Drying up of the Aral Sea
Problems
The Aral Sea was an endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan to its north and Uzbekistan to its south which began shrinking in the 1960s and largely dried up by the 2010s. The Aral Sea drainage basin encompasses Uzbekistan and parts of Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. The Aral Sea is one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in the history of the modern world. The disaster directly affected more than 33 million people in the Aral Sea basin, devastatingly affecting the local environment and economy.
Causes of drying up of sea
In the 1930s, the Aral Sea Disaster began to unfold due to the expanding cotton industry, which required more agricultural land and significantly increased water consumption. During the 1960s, the former Soviet Union started many industrial projects for which they needed water from the Aral Sea. Cotton production significantly contributed to the evaporation of the lake as both rivers were diverted to irrigate the Uzbek cotton plantations.
Consequences of lowering the sea level
These unsustainable water management practices transformed the landscape and ecosystem. An overwhelming majority of the dry sea bottom is heavily salinized and polluted with legacy agriculture runoff. Additionally, these activities caused the river to shrink from 67,000 to only 17% of its original area. 44,000km2 of the area turned into desert, contributing to the further spread of desert areas and climate change.
Gallery
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Timelines
2021
Under a request from the Government of Kazakhstan, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has launched the Environmental Restoration of the Aral Sea Activity. The activity aims to provide environmental restoration measures to improve the resilience of landscapes in the Northern Aral Sea zone.
2006
Experts predicted that the Aral Sea would disappear more than earlier expected because of sea activities such as fishing and taking freshwater resources, plus the population is always not only decreasing but also increasing; more and more people are going to be needing water; also, pollution is affecting the fresh water, causing the water to be infected and have diseases.
2001
The world bank approved to help improve and upgrade the sea by adding a dam and fixing water patches, but they could only help to a certain extent. The water level was so low that there wasn't much they could do.
1994
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan signed a treaty to pledge 1% of their budget to help the Aral Sea recover from water loss. The Aral Sea had gone down so much that other states had to join and add some budget to add water to the sea.
1991
The Soviet Union collapsed, causing other regions to want to collaborate and share the same water source, which meant that more and more water would be taken, and the sea would become smaller.
1980
During the 1980s, the Aral Sea had decreased and split into two smaller lakes that were too salty to support fish.
1977
The Aral Sea supported a commercial fishing industry giving jobs to 60,000 people in the early 1960s. By 1977, fish harvesting had declined by 75%, and by the 1980s, the commercial fishing industry had ended.
1960
The Aral Sea is half the size of England and supplies Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and other Central Asian Countries water to grow cotton and other export crops and to supply people with drinking water.