Aral Sea - What Was and What Is
Aral Sea - What Was and What Is
Aral Sea—What Was and What Is
Since the very beginning of its existence, the human
being has been developing. It has never stopped, and it never will. During
the last couple of centuries it has been developing very aggressively, and it
has reached tremendous achievements in all fields. Unfortunately mankind has
achieved tremendous success in polluting its environment also. Nowadays,
nature is missing many of its inhabitants: – those who are supposed to be under
the protection of humans as young brothers and sisters. Pollution was the
reason for their extinction. Finally, the humanity started paying more
attention to what surrounds it. It started thinking about the future, its
future generations, and the inheritance to these generations. People have started
asking themselves more often questions like, “What will we have left to other
children after us?” Currently, humanity has plenty of global environmental
problems that it has to take care of now. Tomorrow will be too late. Some of
these global environmental problems are global warming, deforestation,
freshwater contamination, destruction of ozone layer of the earth, pollution of
space orbit of the earth by parts of used equipment. Desiccation of the Aral
Sea is one of the items on the list.
The Aral Sea, which is
also considered to be a lake or Inland Sea in Central Asia, is located in
southwestern Kazakstan and northwestern Uzbekistan, near the Caspian Sea. The
Aral has no outlet. The Aral Sea is still listed as the fourth largest lake in
the world. But it has been shrinking for decades, and the statistics might
change. In time the Aral Sea may not the fourth largest lake in the world
anymore.
Nowadays, two major
problems have risen before the governments of Uzbekistan and Kazakstan; the
desiccation and as a result of this threat of the complete disappearance of the
sea, and the danger of the broad extension of anthrax bacteria that was stored
by the Soviet Army Vozrozdenia Island.
In
comparison with the size of the sea in the 1960’s, the Sea has declined in size
by seventy-six percent. The initial reason for the Aral’s decline is the fact
that Soviet planners diverted water from Aral’s two big feeding rivers (Amu
Darya and Syr Darya) into cotton fields in the territory of Uzbekistan. Because
of this irrigation, the sea is now seventy miles away from its former bank (in
some places even more). Ninety percent of the Syr Daya’s water is diverted
into canals and reservoirs. Millions of people in Central Asia rely on the
rivers for a livelihood. Uzbekistan, for instance, generates twenty-eight
percent of its hard currency from cotton irrigated with river water (The Aral
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