Aral Sea's Eastern Basin Is Dry for First Time in 600 Years

Article by Brian Clark Howard

for National Geographic

Published on October 1,2014

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141001-aral-sea-shrinking-drought-water-environment/

Due to global warming, pollution and human interference the environment is changing rapidly, species are becoming endangered, the seas are becoming polluted and sometimes whole lakes are drying up. This was the case with the Aral sea, which has reached an all time low when it comes to water levels. Philip Micklin (Aral Sea expert and geographer at Western Michigan university) said "It is likely the first time it has completely dried in 600 years, since medieval desiccation associated with diversion of Amu Darya [river] to the Caspian Sea". From this quote alone we can already realize that there is something thoroughly wrong with the fact that such a large body of water dried up. Recently NASA released satellite images shows the “sea” without its eastern basin, which is a significant difference when comparing these images to ones taken in 2000.

The Aral sea is really a large freshwater lake, and covered 67,300 square kilometers. However these days are behind it, as it has been a location for several successful cities, housed a large fishing industry. The problems began in 1960 when soviet engineers decided to build a vast irrigation network, 20,000 miles of pipes, 45 dams and an estimated 80 reservoirs. This vast network was made so that wheat and cotton fields in Kazakhstan and Neighboring countries could be irrigated. Already it was evident that this would lead to eventual problems, since 40 dams are a significant amount, and were bound to overuse the lake. To add to the design flaws, the system was extremely inefficient and had huge leaks. This lead to the lake draining and being reduced to several smaller lakes that had a combined volume that was 1/10th of the original.

The image above shows the Aral sea in 2000 and in 2014, the black lines show how large it was in 1960.

This lead to massive fish deaths, several millions, reduced coastlines, which meant that some towns were no longer on the coastline. Many abandoned the settlements, this left behind many toxic materials that were not disposed properly. After several decades the lake was separated into the North (smaller) Aral and the South (larger). However the larger of the two split further into eastern and western basins. The main cause of the drying up is the overuse of the river for irrigation, along with less rain and snow in the mountains.

The fact that over the course of 40 years, such a large body of water was shattered and reduced to several smaller basins is astounding. It only shows how destructive humans can be, and how ignorant governments are or were towards the potential threats related to overuse of resources. The Aral sea wasn't only a valuable resource that is now depleted, but it was the habitat to many species, that were greatly affected by the system put into place. Firstly dams already do damage to the lake as an ecosystem, because they change the water levels and can cause the deaths of many animals living within the water or around it. Adding to this issue is the fact that the overuse caused a split in the lake, which left many animals without their habitats. It is strange that this event is getting so little attention, and that no major organizations made any effort to preserve the Aral sea, which shows how certain aspects of our environment are being completely ignored and disregarded.