Aral Sea
Eco system
M.S.Mathesh
The Aral Sea was an endorheic lake lying
between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and autonomous region
in the south. The name roughly translates as "Sea of Islands",
referring to over 1,100 islands that had dotted its waters.
Resources and Advantages
Being in the center of a vast mainland far from oceans, the Aral Sea is
the fourth largest lake in the world. It maintains a continental climate.
Temperatures in the region reach 40 degrees centigrade in the summer
and in winters temperature falls down to -20 degrees centigrade with
minimal precipitation.
The main volume of surface waters is consisted of thaw water from high
glaciers, feeding the two recently largest rivers of the region.
Actually a freshwater lake, the
Aral Sea once had a surface
area of 26,000 square miles
(67,300 square kilometers). It
had long been ringed with
prosperous towns and
supported a lucrative muskrat
pelt industry and thriving
fishery, providing 40,000 jobs
and supplying the Soviet
Union with a sixth of its fish
catch.
Aral Sea's Eastern Basin Is Dry
for First Time in 600 Years
The Aral Sea was fed by two of Central Asia's
mightiest rivers, the Amu Darya and the
Syr Darya.
Amu Darya Syr Darya
The riverine waters of the Syr Darya (ancient Jaxartes River) in
the north and the Amu Darya (ancient Oxus River) in the south,
discharged into the Aral Sea and they were its main sources of
inflowing water.
Causes of Ecosystem Changes
But in the 1960s, Soviet engineers decided to make the vast
steppes bloom.
They built an enormous irrigation network, including 20,000
miles of canals, 45 dams, and more than 80 reservoirs, all to
irrigate sprawling fields of cotton and wheat in Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan.
But the system was leaky and inefficient, and the rivers drained
to a trickle.
Causes of Ecosystem Changes
In the decades that followed,
the Aral Sea was reduced to a
handful of small lakes, with a
combined volume that was
one-tenth the original lake's
size and that had much higher
salinity, due to all the
evaporation.
As a result of the drying over the past
decades, millions of fish died,
coastlines receded miles from towns,
and those few people who remained
were plagued by dust storms that
contained the toxic residue of
industrial agriculture and weapons
testing in the area.
Consequences of the disturbance
Environmental/Economic
•Degeneration of the delta ecosystems
•Total collapse of the fishing industry (originally 44,000 t/a)
•Decrease of productivity of agricultural fields
Consequences of the disturbance
Health
•Increase of serious diseases( e.g. cholera, typhus, gastritis, blood
cancer)
•Increase of respiratory system diseases (asthma, bronchitis)
•Birth defects and high infant mortality
Consequences of the disturbance
Climatic
•Mesoclimatic changes (increase of continentality)
•Increase of salt and dust storms
•Shortening of the vegetation period
Restoration of Aral Sea
Today, the sea is a 10th of its original size and has almost split in two.
The North Aral Sea – the top half of the body of water – lies in
Kazakhstan.
The South Aral Sea, which consist of a strip of water in the west and a
dried-out basin in the east, sits in Uzbekistan.
In the 1990s, both bodies of water
seemed headed for similar
outcomes. But that changed when
the World Bank stepped in with
an $87m (£66m) rescue project in
Kazakhstan.
This included constructing a 12km-long (7.5 mile) dyke across the
narrow channel that connects the North Aral Sea to its neighbour to
the south, with the aim of reducing the amount of water spilling out
into the South Aral Sea.
Kok-Aral Dam
Finished in the summer of 2005, the Kokaral dam – as the dyke is
known – surpassed the World Bank’s expectations, leading to an
increase of 3.3m (10.8ft) in water levels after seven months, which
scientists had previously calculated would take around 10 years.
The dyke is conserving the dwindling waters of the Syr
Darya river and maintaining the damaged ecology of the North
Aral Sea,
Thank You
