The Great Aral Sea: causes of death, history, photos

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

This article will talk about one of the corners of the earth, turned into a barren desert as a result of improper agricultural activities by people.

General information

Earlier, the size of the Aral Sea was the fourth body of water in the world. The death of the Aral Sea was the result of excessive water withdrawal for irrigation of the vast agricultural lands of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Everything that happens to the Aral Sea is an irreparable environmental disaster.

A little more about this and many other things related to this natural reservoir will be discussed later in the article.

It's even scary to imagine, but the area of the Aral Sea and its volume today are respectively only a quarter and about 10% of the original values.

Meaning of the name of the sea

This natural reservoir has a considerable number of islands. In this regard, it was called Aral. From the language of the indigenous population of these places, this word is translated as "sea of islands".

Aral Sea today: general characteristics, location

In fact, today it is a drainless, s alty, relict lake. Its location is Central Asia, territoriesborders of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Due to the change in the flow of the Syrdarya and Amudarya rivers that feed the sea, since the middle of the 20th century there has been a huge loss of water volume with a corresponding decrease in their surface, which caused an ecological catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.

Back in 1960, the Big Aral Sea was really like that. The surface of the water mirror was 53 meters above sea level, and the total area was 68,000 square kilometers. It stretched for about 435 km from north to south and for 290 km from east to west. Its average depth reached 16 meters, and the deepest places - 69 meters.

The Aral Sea today is a drying lake that has shrunk in size. It has gone 100 km from its former coastline (for example, near the Uzbek city of Muynak).

Climate

The territory of the Aral Sea is characterized by a continental desert climate, with a large amplitude of temperature changes, with very hot summers and rather cold winters.

Insufficient rainfall (approximately 100 mm per year) slightly balances evaporation. The factors that determine the water balance are river water supply from existing rivers and evaporation, which used to be about equal.

About the reasons for the disappearance of the Aral Sea

In fact, over the past 50 years, the death of the Aral Sea has occurred. Since about 1960, the level of its water surface began to decrease rapidly and systematically. This has led to artificialunfolding the currents of the Syrdarya and Amudarya rivers in order to irrigate local fields. Soviet authorities began to transform the vast wastelands of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan into beautiful cultivated fields.

Due to such large-scale actions, the amount of water entering the natural reservoir began to slowly decrease. Since the 1980s, during the summer months, two huge rivers began to dry up, not flowing to the sea, and the reservoir, deprived of these tributaries, began to shrink. The Aral Sea is in a deplorable state today (the photo below shows this).

The sea naturally split into 2 parts. Thus, two reservoirs were created: in the south, the Great Aral Sea (Great Aral); in the north - the Small Aral. Salinity at the same time increased 3 times compared to the 50s.

According to 1992, the total area of both reservoirs decreased to 33.8 thousand square meters. km, and the water surface level decreased by 15 meters.

Of course, there have been attempts by the governments of the Central Asian countries to arrange a policy of water-saving agriculture in order to stabilize the level of the Aral Sea by releasing the volumes of river water. However, difficulties in coordinating decisions among Asian countries made it impossible to complete projects on this issue.

Thus, the Aral Sea was divided. Its depth has been greatly reduced. Over time, almost 3 separate small lakes were formed: the Big Aral (western and eastern lakes) and the Small Aral.

According to scientists, the southern part of the reservoir is also expected to disappear by 2020.

Consequences

The dried Aral Sea by the end of the 80s lost more than 1/2 of its volume. In this regard, the amount of s alts and minerals has sharply increased, which led to the extinction of the fauna rich in the past in this region, especially many species of fish.

The existing ports (in the north of Aralsk and in the south of Muynak) today are already many kilometers away from the lake shoreline. Thus, the region was devastated.

In the 1960s, the total catch of fish reached 40 thousand tons, and in the mid-80s commercial fishing in the area had already ceased to exist. Thus, approximately 60,000 jobs were lost.

The most common inhabitant of the sea was the Black Sea flounder, adapted to life in s alty sea water (it was introduced in the 1970s). It disappeared in the Greater Aral in 2003, as the salinity of the water began to reach values of more than 70 g / l, which is almost 4 times more than in sea water, familiar to such fish.

The state in which the Aral Sea is today has led to a strong climate change and an increase in temperature amplitude. And navigation here has stopped due to the retreat of water for many kilometers from the main ports of the Aral Sea.

In the process of lowering the water level in both reservoirs, the groundwater level fell, respectively, and this, in turn, accelerated the inevitable process of desertificationlocality.

Rebirth Island

The subject of special attention and care in the late 90s was Fr. Renaissance. In those days, only 10 km. water separated the islet from the mainland. The rapidly increasing accessibility of this island has become a particular problem, as during the Cold War this place was the center of various research related to Union bioweapons.

Also, in addition to such studies, hundreds of tons of dangerous anthrax bacteria were buried on it. The unrest of scientists was due to the fact that in this way anthrax could spread again in areas inhabited by people. In 2001, Fr. Vozrozhdeniye has already joined the mainland from its southern side.

The Aral Sea (photo of a modern reservoir above) is in a terribly deplorable state. And the living conditions in the area began to deteriorate. For example, the residents of Karakalpakstan, living in the territories located south of the Aral Sea, suffered the most.

Most of the open bottom of the lake is the cause of numerous dust storms, carrying toxic dust with s alts and pesticides throughout the region. In connection with these phenomena, people living in the area where the so-called Great Aral Sea is located began to develop serious he alth problems, especially many cases of cancer of the larynx, kidney disease and anemia. And the infant mortality rate in the region is the highest in the world.

About flora and fauna

Already in the 1990syears (in the middle), instead of the greenery of lush trees, grasses and shrubs on the former magnificent seashores, only rare bunches of plants (xerophytes and halophytes) were seen, somehow adapted to dry and highly saline soils.

Also, only 1/2 of the local species of birds and mammals have survived here due to climate change within 100 km from the original coastline (strong change in temperature and humidity).

Conclusion

The catastrophic ecological state that the once large Big Aral Sea has today brings a lot of trouble to distant regions.

Surprisingly, dust from the Aral Sea has been found even on the glaciers of Antarctica. And this is evidence that the disappearance of this area has greatly affected the global ecosystem. One should think about the fact that humanity should conduct its life activities deliberately, without causing such catastrophic harm to the environment that gives life to all living things.