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The Aral 'Sea' - if it can still be called that - was once the
fourth largest lake in the world and of great economic and ecological
importance to the area. Its fishing industry employed 40,000 people and its waters
were a sanctuary of life amongst the surrounding desert. It was an oasis in ancient times and formed an important point along the Silk
Road – the great connecting route between Europe and Asia.
However, in the 1950s the Soviet Union began to bleed the tributary rivers to support its vision of a self-reliant cotton industry, known at the time
as ‘white gold’. The water from two of the main rivers was quickly diverted with little to no thought of what lay
downstream. By the 1980s so much water was being diverted that in dry years no
water reached the sea at all. The
pictures say all that’s needed for the effect this had on the water level.
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| In 1973, the sea had already suffered from 20 years of diverted source water, but was still four times larger than in 2004. Source |
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| The Aral Sea at its most depleted in 2009. Source |
The impacts were, and continue to be, huge. The receding shoreline increased the salinity of
the remaining water, all but decimating ecosystems and fish populations. Vast
plains of sediments were left behind and swallowed the land in a dust bowl. To
add insult to injury, much of the dust is toxic – a relic of Soviet era
biological weapon testing and pesticide runoff.
An ironic consequence is that cotton yields – the reason for
draining the sea in the first place – continue to fall as a result of declining soil fertility.
The toxic waste has also caused almost every measure of
health to decline. Infant mortality increased from 25 per 1000 births in 1950 to 70-100 per 1000 births in 1996. Furthermore, a whole range of diseases have become more
common and life expectancy in the region has
fallen from 64 to a shocking 51. Even the climate of the region has been affected,
experiencing shorter, drier summers and colder, longer winters.
The Future
Thankfully, there are things being done to improve the situation
and every year the Central Asian States meet to discuss the problem. Efforts have focussed on the Northern part of
the Sea, with irrigation channels repaired and a dam built to contain the water
that is recovered. The World Bank is also funding further projects and has commissioned a second
dam to be built. By 2006, fish had been successfully reintroduced and has begun
the long process of economic revival.
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| Comparison of the North Aral Sea between 2000 and 2011. Source |
Unfortunately, the much larger South Aral Sea has a less
hopeful fate. There are currently no real plans to improve flow to the sea and, besides,
it would reportedly take 75 years to refill even if all irrigation was abandoned. Instead, Uzbekistan seems content to write-off
the land and explore it for oil and gas, probably the biggest example of environmental neglect of any country in recent times.
In many ways, the Aral Sea is a microcosm of environmental affairs. On one side, we have an international effort to improve the situation and attempt to recover the economic, social and environmental state of the area. On the other, we have the greed of the few that really can't be bothered and would much rather search desperately for quick fixes and short-term returns. We can only hope that future brings more emphasis on the former.
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