Once Written Off for Dead, the Aral Sea Is Now Full of Life (nationalgeographic.com) 50
Years ago, the Aral Sea was the world's fourth-largest freshwater lake with an area of some 26,000 square miles. But in the 1950s, it became the victim of the Soviet Union's agricultural policies. Water from its two river sources -- the Amu Darya and Syr Darya -- was intentionally diverted for cotton cultivation. The Aral Sea began to disappear and nearly completely vanished. But things have changed for good. From a report: This rapid collapse over less than three decades -- which environmental scientists say is one of the planet's worst ecological disasters -- is marked today by the sea's reduced size. Its total area of water, straddling Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, is now a tenth of its original size. What's left has broken into two distinct bodies: the North and South Aral Seas. In Uzbekistan, the entire eastern basin of the South Aral Sea is completely desiccated, leaving merely a single strip of water in the west.
But Kazakhstan's North Aral Sea has seen a happier outcome, thanks to a nearly $86 million project financed in large part by the World Bank. Along with repairs to existing dikes around the basin to prevent spillage, an eight-mile dam was constructed just south of the Syr Darya River. Completed in the summer of 2005, this dam, named Kokaral, surpassed all expectations. It led to an 11-foot increase in water levels after just seven months -- a goal that scientists initially expected would take three years. This turnaround in the North Aral Sea's fate has meant that the fish stocks have returned to its waters, injecting new life into the local communities. Just as government policies had doomed the Aral Sea, careful planning and research helped revive at least part of it.
But Kazakhstan's North Aral Sea has seen a happier outcome, thanks to a nearly $86 million project financed in large part by the World Bank. Along with repairs to existing dikes around the basin to prevent spillage, an eight-mile dam was constructed just south of the Syr Darya River. Completed in the summer of 2005, this dam, named Kokaral, surpassed all expectations. It led to an 11-foot increase in water levels after just seven months -- a goal that scientists initially expected would take three years. This turnaround in the North Aral Sea's fate has meant that the fish stocks have returned to its waters, injecting new life into the local communities. Just as government policies had doomed the Aral Sea, careful planning and research helped revive at least part of it.
Downsizing works (Score:2)
...sometimes.
God-Emperor (Score:1, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The Aral sea hasn't dried and withered away completely yet.
One Aral, not the Aral (Score:5, Informative)
“It is helping to save the Small Aral sea,” says FitzGerald. “But it was also a death warrant to the Big Aral, on the Uzbek side. People on the Uzbek side are very angry about it. The dam shut the only source of water that was entering their sea.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/resour... [bbc.com]
Re:One Aral, not the Aral (Score:5, Informative)
So, similar to the Uzbeks, you simply chose to ignore the next paragraph, which inconveniently notes that:
"That ignores, however, the fact that the Amu Darya - known to Central Asian schoolchildren as the Amazon of the region - was diverted into myriad irrigation channels supplying Uzbekistanâ(TM)s own cotton and rice fields."
It's was the only remaining source of water because the Uzbeks completely diverted their own source of water. But that paints a far less sympathetic picture.
Re: One Aral, not the Aral (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
To which the response is Kazakhstan is a lot bigger and has lots of uranium (both the US and Russia want to be friends with them), what can you say, sucks to be Uzbek. It is not a very big dam and well below original water levels, so maybe it will eventually overflow, better some hope than none.
World Bank please.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: World Bank please.... (Score:2)
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From TFA
> For them the disappearance of the sea is a disaster. The revival of the Small Aral brings hope to some, but it was only ever 5% of the whole. The Western basin accounts for another 5%.
> Ninety per cent of the sea has gone.
> It’s one of the world’s most startling ecological calamities - the story of how cotton soaked up an entire sea.
But feel free to add "40 years of man made interference destroyed 90% of a sea" to the list of reasons why climate change is wrong.
Re:Just like global warming... (Score:5, Insightful)
The losses of the Aral sea have noting to do with "climate change".
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I was a little obscure in my description.
Was just responding to the AC who seemed to claim that the planet is 100% capable of repairing itself from any man made thing done to it before anything bad happens.
Didn't mean to imply that the sea went missing due to climate change.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, my fault perhaps. Probably I did not read correctly :D
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Found some tribalist partisan imbecile's lost pet parrot.
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Found Ivan.
Re: The collapse of the USSR (Score:2)
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Why are you so stupid?
What has communism/socialism to do with a totalitorian regime forcing the destruction of a river for cotton plantages?
Re:The collapse of the USSR (Score:4)
Who the fuck modded that crap informative?
The recovery - which is not that impressive - has nothing to do with the nations being allowed to control their own land. Once the USSR collapsed, the economy in both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan dwindled and so did the population - of Kazakhstan at least (Usbekistan had a little dirty civil war instead). That is the only reason for the recovery.
Re:The collapse of the USSR (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly, what Nestlé is doing to water supply worldwide could only happen in dirty commie shitholes
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, the much more intelligent capitalists would never build huge cities with golf clubs, water shows and huge swimming pools in the frickin' desert, right?
Re:The collapse of the USSR (Score:5, Interesting)
Except looking at the Wikipedia page shows that in 1989 right before comunisim collapsed the Aral Sea was mostly intact but by 2014 it had mostly dried up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
So while Soviet era policies are the problem it didn't actually dry up during the existence of the USSR. In addition the Wikipedia page says it has been shrinking since at *LEAST* 1850
Though further reading of the article reveals that the irrigation channels leak like the buggery wasting anywhere between 30% and 75% of the water being used for irrigation. So perhaps all that is needed is to bring the irrigation channels up to scratch and the irrigation can continue and the sea will refill at least partially.
Reading a bit further shrinkage in the 1990's was basically all down to the Uzbek leader. Fortunately that particular despot died 18 months ago, and things tentatively look to be improving.
Finally the Soviets expected the sea to disappear.
Never react to anything (Score:2)
"careful planning and research"
This SHOULD be a lesson to everyone insisting that the government "do something". Reactionary legislation is usually bad legislation that takes years to undo. The other lesson people should learn is that those who insist that the government "do something right away" are lying their ass off.