THE

ARAL
SEA
 • The Aral Sea is a saltwater lake located in
Central Asia, straddling the boundary
between Kazakhstan to the north and
Uzbekistan to the south .
It was once the world’s fourth-largest bod
Where is it? y of inland water but has shrunk remarkabl
y because of the diversion of its sources of
inflowing water for irrigation beginning i
n the second half of the 20th century
 • the Aral Sea in Central
Asia was the fourth largest
lake in the world. It had an
area of 67,300 square
kilometres. Two of the
How big was it? biggest rivers in Central
Asia, the Amu Darya and
the Syr Darya, went into
the Aral Sea. But the water
almost disappeared.
How big is it now?
• Zeynulla Kaztoganov said that from October 2022 to date, the water
level in the sea has risen to 40.90 mBS, or 48 cm, and the volume of
collected water amounted to 19.7 billion cubic meters
 • Until the 1960s, the Aral Sea covered an
area of 26,000 square miles surrounded by
arid steppes, which provided the USSR
with tens of thousands of jobs and over 15
percent of its fish catch. This, however,

What happened was not enough for the Soviet

government, which in the second half of
to the Aral sea the 20th century, decided to convert the
dry region into one of the world’s largest
cotton plantations.
 • The Aral Sea has dried up, leading to numerous environmental
problems in the region. These problems include:

• Collapse of fisheries and the communities that depended on

What are the them.

problems for • Increasingly salty water that became polluted with fertilizer
and pesticides.

people animals • The blowing dust from the exposed lakebed, contaminated

and the planet with agricultural chemicals, became a public health hazard.

• The salt and mineral content of the lake rose drastically,

making the water unfit for drinking purposes

• Killing off the once-abundant supplies of sturgeon, carp,

barbel, roach, and other fishes in the lake.
 • In recent years, there have been
some efforts to restore the Aral
Sea, including the construction
of a dam to prevent further
water loss and the planting of
drought-resistant vegetation to
Solutions stabilize the shoreline.