Aral Sea – A Great Human Tragedy
In its glory days Aral Sea was one of the four largest lakes of the world spanning 26,000 square miles but now is a mere shadow of its former self.
It has shrunk to about 10 percent of its original size and splitted into three lakes.
The southeastern lake has all but disappeared, the southwestern lake has become a narrow strip at the west of the former southern sea, and the North Aral Sea is only 138 ft deep at its deepest point.
In the 1960s, Soviet Union diverted the rivers that feed the lake to support its irrigation projects for growing cotton in arid areas. Since then, the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking.
It was once heavily populated because of flourishing fishing industry and shipping. Now the region is virtually destroyed, unemployment is burgeoning and economic hardship is getting worse. The local climate has changed, summers have become hotter and drier, and winters colder and longer. Winds from the vast arid dust bowl carries salty sand to far away places such as Scandinavia and Japan, and creates health problem for the locals.
The plight of the Aral Sea has been highlighted by a recent visit of the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Ban visited a small town Muynak in Uzbekistan, which was once on the shore of the Aral Sea. A pier could be seen still stretched over what is now desert and camels strayed near a few stranded ships. The Secretary called it one of the most shocking disasters of the planet and urged Central Asian leaders to come forward to solve the problem.
The government of Kazakhstan is trying to revive the Lake. They constructed a dam in 2005 to divert water to the lake and as a result, the water level rose by 39 feet from its lowest level in 2003. Salinity also dropped bringing up fish population and reviving small-scale fishing. The future of the South Aral Sea however remains doomed.
Cooperation on the project is hard to come by because of friction between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Uzbek officials complained to Ban that Tajikistan was constructing a dam, which would severely reduce the amount of water flowing into the lake in Uzbekistan. Tajikistan on the other hand views the hydroelectric project as the lifeline of its economy. The global warming and increasing populations would make competition for water harder in the coming days.
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