 |
The Aral Sea is not part of any ocean. It is a landlocked endorheic sea in Asia. This means that it is a closed basin where the only way it loses water is through evaporation or seepage instead of emptying into another waterway. The Aral Sea has been disappearing since the 1960s because the rivers that emptied into it no longer feed it, they were changed so that they are used for irrigation now. In addition to the problem of shrinkage, the Aral Sea is highly polluted due to weapon testing and industrial and fertilizer pollution.
In the early 1900s the Soviet plan was to let cotton become a major export for Russia. In order to grow cotton in the desert water would need to be diverted from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers for irrigation. Irrigation canals were built and today the province of Uzbekistan is a major exporter of cotton. But the water diversion has hurt the Aral Sea and led top its reduction in size. Engineers involved from the beginning say they knew there would be shrinkage of the sea and the attitude is that the sea is expendable.
The loss of water has caused the Aral Sea to split in half, now called the North Aral Sea and the South Aral Sea. And to make matters worse the South Aral Sea split in half becoming east and west basins. Recently a dam was built to help alleviate the problem of the shrinkage and it has seemed to help. The North Aral Sea water level has actually risen as has the South Aral Sea. |
