Effects of Shrinking

Aral Sea
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various websites / sources
 Scheme of Presentation
 Location and Size of Aral Sea
 Aral Sea Basin
 Desiccation Process
 Causes of Desiccation
 Effects of Aral Sea Disaster
 Efforts / Planned Projects to Solve the Problem
 Measures to Save Aral Sea (Way Forward)
 Aral Sea
Aktobe

Kyzlorda

Krakalpakstan

Lies between Kazakhstan (Aktobe and Kyzlorda provinces) in the North and
Krakalpakstan, in the South
 Aral Sea
Aral Sea

Syr Darya

Amu Darya

Aral Sea translates into "Sea of Islands", referring to more than 1,500 islands
that once dotted its waters, Syr and Amu Darya are its sources of water
 Aral Sea

In 1960 Aral Sea was one of the four largest lakes in the world with an area of
68,000 sq km, Average depth 16.1 M and Maximum depth 68 M
 Aral Sea Basin
 Basis for life in Aral Sea Basin area always was
agriculture and livestock farming
 Dependence of region on water storage and land
resources exists from times immemorial
 Ecosystem of the region is very vulnerable to manmade
impacts because of arid conditions
 Extensive method of economic activity and significant
population upsurge prompted occurrence of numerous
regional environmental, social and economic problems,
including global scale catastrophe as Aral Sea tragedy
 Aral Sea is recognized by world community to be one of
the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century
Causes of Aral Sea
Desiccation
Causes of Aral Sea Desiccation
 From late 1950s to 1990 large-scale programmes on land
development were implemented in the Aral Sea Basin
 By 1960 water diverted from rivers that feed the Aral Sea
irrigated 11 million acres, most of it former desert,
producing enough cotton to make the Soviet Union a net
exporter of “white gold”
 Karakum Canal; 1400 km through desert (Turkmenistan)
 From 1974 to 1986 almost no water reached the Aral Sea
from Syr Darya
 While the sea had been receiving about 50 cubic km of
water per year in 1965, by the early 1980s this had fallen
to zero
Causes of Aral Sea Desiccation
 For more than 30 years, about 90% water from the Amu
Darya and the Syr Darya diverted to irrigate millions of
acres of land for cotton and rice production
 Now these rivers irrigate 20 million acres land
 Excessive irrigation substantially decreased inflow to
Aral, and the Aral’s shoreline began to recede rapidly
 Mismanagement / wastage of water
 Seepage because of unlined water channels
 Evaporation due to very high temperature
Aral Sea Desiccation
Process
 Aral Sea 1853

Formerly one of the four largest lakes in the world with an area of 68,000 sq km,
the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s after the rivers that fed
it were diverted by Soviet Union irrigation projects
By 2007, Aral Sea declined to 10%
of its original size, splitting into
four lakes – the North Aral Sea and
the eastern and western basins of
the once far larger South Aral Sea
and one smaller lake between North
and South Aral Sea
 Aral Sea 1989

Vozrozdeniye Island
 Aral Sea 2000

By 1990s, surface area of the Aral had shrunk by nearly half,

and the volume was down by 75%
Aral Sea 2001
 Aral Sea 2002

Water flow into the Aral Sea decreased and water-level lowered more than 21 m
Aral Sea 2003
Aral Sea 2004
Aral Sea 2005
Aral Sea 2006
Aral Sea 2007
Aral Sea 2008
 Aral Sea 2009

By 2009, the south-eastern lake had disappeared and the south-western lake
retreated to a thin strip at the extreme west of the former southern sea
 Aral Sea 2010

Contaminated Aral dust storms have been reported as far

away as the Arctic, fertile Fergana Valley and Pakistan
Effects of Desiccation
of the Aral Sea
Effects of Aral Sea Desiccation

Effects on Land
Effects on Health
Effects on Fishing Industry
Hydrological Effects
Effects on Climate
Effects on Ecology
 Effects on Land
 Over-irrigation and use of chemical fertilizers / pesticides
caused toxic salt buildup in many agricultural areas
 As the water retreated, salty sea bed soil was exposed
 More than 4 million hectares of lands turned into desert
 Deltas of Amu Darya and Syr Darya are worst hit regions
 Aridity of climate, natural supplies of salts in deposits of
alluvial plains, land erosion, salt-dust transfer from drying
bottom of the Aral Sea accentuated the problem
 Loss of vegetation
 Effects on Land
 Contamination of water and soil with industrial and
household wastes, pesticides etc
 Major part of the region has changed as a consequence
of manmade activity (deforestation, water deficit,
irrigation, steppes ploughing)
 Decrease of number of flora and fauna species
 Collapse of Tugai Forests in Aral near-shore zones
 Dust storms have blown up to 75,000 tons of exposed
soil annually, dispersing its salt particles and pesticide
residues
Effects on Population Health
 Population health was changed for the worse because of
environmental problems including water contamination
and air pollution, lack of potable water, poor sanitation
 More than 5 million people living in Amu Darya and Syr
Darya deltas affected directly
 Airborne salt and dust is linked to a rising incidence of
respiratory illnesses and may be a cause of throat and
esophageal cancer
 Cancers have increased by 30 times; arthritis by 60
times; chronic bronchitis by 30 times
Effects on Population Health
 Poor quality drinking water, frequently obtained from
rivers and irrigation canals, has a high salt content and
contains pesticides, defoliants, and fertilizers
 Drinking water contaminated with viral and bacterial
pathogens is responsible for high rates of typhoid,
paratyphoid, viral hepatitis, and dysentery
 Maternal and infant mortality rate in epicentre of the
disaster zone is one of the highest in CARs
 Decrease of life expectancy, high rate of tuberculosis,
anemia, cancer, asthma, dysfunction of thyroid gland etc
 Vozrozhdeniye Island
 In 1952, the former Soviet Defence Force started to
conduct experiments with biological agents and
aerosols for a range of military purposes
 Due to its remoteness, Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral
Sea was selected for open-air testing.
 World's largest biological-warfare testing ground
 Experiments conducted on horses, donkeys, sheep,
monkeys and on laboratory animals, such as white
mice, guinea pigs and hamsters
Vozrozhdeniye Island
Vozrozhdeniye Island
Lab Complex Vozrozhdeniye Island
 Vozrozhdeniye Island
 Sparsely populated deserts and semi-deserts
surrounding the Aral Sea, the island’s climatic
conditions and the isolation from the neighbouring
mainland reduced propagation and transmission risks
 Agents tested at the Island included anthrax, tularemia,
brucellosis, plague, typhus, Q fever, smallpox,
botulinum toxin
 Vozrozhdeniye Island
 In 1992, the Russian Government declared the closure of
facility
 Structures were dismantled, and the island was
decontaminated and transferred to Kazakh control
 In August 1995, specialists of the US Department of
Defense confirmed this after site visits
 Because of the tests, environmental specialists have for
many years been concerned about the contamination of
the island by pathogenic micro-organisms, some of them
resistant to standard antibiotics
 Anthrax spores can survive in soil for decades, creating a
lasting source of contamination
Vozrozhdeniye Island
 Desiccation of Aral Sea resulted in the increase of
Vozrozhdeniye Island’s surface
 Its initial surface of 200 km sq expanded to 2000 km sq
in 1990
 Vozrozhdeniye Island connected to the mainland which
undermine safety aspects
 Contamination poses continuous and increasing threat
to the environment and the health of the population
around the Aral Sea
Vozrozhdeniye Island
 In 2001, the Kazakh government announced with great
fanfare that the Aral Sea region contains major oil
deposits
 Effects on Fishing Industry
 Increasing salinity became intolerable for various kinds of
fish beginning in the 1970s, and some species unique to
the Aral Sea are now extinct
 As the Aral shrank, its salinity increased, and by 1977 the
formerly large fish catch had declined by over 75%
 By the early 1980s, commercially useful fish had been
eliminated, shutting down an industry that had employed
60,000
 Region's once prosperous fishing industry has been
virtually destroyed, bringing unemployment and
economic hardship
 Ships lie abandoned on salt-encrusted sea beds, and
fishing villages are now up to 50 km from water
Abandoned Aral Fish Harbour
Abandoned Ships / Fishing Trawlers
Abandoned Ships / Fishing Trawlers
Effects on Climate
 Local climate has shifted

 Aral Sea used to absorb heat during summers,

maintain humidity in the region and during winters
large water body helped maintaining temperature to a
reasonable level
 Desert land has spread; wetlands have dried up; and
sandstorms, stirring up pesticide-laden dust, are
more common
 Summers are hotter and dryer and winters colder
 Hydrological Effects
 Aral Lake's salt concentration increased from 10% to
more than 23%
 Ground-water level dropped resulting into drying wells
and springs and degrading natural plant communities,
pastures, and hayfields
 Deterioration of Ecosystem
 Diminished flow of the Syr Dar'ya and Amu Dar'ya has
had devastating effects on rivers' deltas
 Prior to 1960, these oases surrounded by desert not only
possessed great ecological value because of the richness
of their flora and fauna but provided a natural feed base
for livestock, spawning grounds for commercial fish,
reeds harvested for industry, and opportunities for
commercial hunting and trapping
 Between 1960 and 1974, the area of natural lakes in the
Syr Dar'ya Delta decreased
 11 of the 25 largest lakes disappeared and 4 of the
remainder significantly receded
 Effects on Natural Habitat
 Livestock raising suffered considerable damage
because of a decline in yields and a reduction of
suitable areas
 Between 1960 and 1980 the area of hayfields and
pastures decreased by 81% and yields fell by more than
50%
 At one time 173 animal species lived around the Aral,
mainly in the deltas; 38 have survived
 Commercial hunting and trapping have largely
disappeared
 Harvest of muskrat skins in the Amu Dar'ya Delta has
fallen to 2,500 per year from 650,000 in 1960
Projects to Save
Aral Sea
Projects to Save Aral Sea
 Soviet planners prepared a plan to transfer waters from
Siberia's Ob-Irtysh and the Volga Rivers
 Canals would drain water from each of these rivers and
move it south to the Aral Sea
 Ob River pours 385 cubic km of water into the Arctic
Ocean, the Volga River pours 240 cubic km of water per
year into the Caspian Sea
 This is about 10% above normal and has gone on for
years
Plan to Transfer Water from Ob-Irtysh
and Volga Rivers
 Projects to Save Aral Sea
 Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost put an end to this scheme,
as the Soviet populace became aware of ecological
disasters, and began to have the freedom to petition and
protestIn 1988, the Soviet Central Committee decreed
that cotton growing was to be reduced, so that the Aral
Sea could receive water in gradually increasing amounts
of water

 There was some reduction in water diversion as a result

 Dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 ended
central authority and Aral Crisis was in the hands of the
five Central Asian nations
 Projects to Save Aral Sea
 They signed an agreement in 1992 pledging efforts
toward Aral rehabilitation, but little action has been taken
 Efforts to address the crisis have focused on preventing
further shrinkage of the Aral Sea
 International Fund to Save Aral Sea
 Numerous Studies
 Another meeting, in January 1994, resulted in offers to
reduce water consumption, and promises of money for
an Aral Fund
 Projects to Save Aral Sea
 Full restoration of entire Aral Sea would require a large
scale regional changes, such as a shift away from
agriculture and huge amount of funds which under the
prevalent environment may be a difficult proposition
 An effort to save and replenish the North Aral Sea was
made by Kazakhstan
 As part of this effort, a dam project was completed in
2005; and by 2008, the water level in this lake had risen
by 24 m from its lowest level in 2007
Measures to Save
Aral Sea
 Measures to Save Aral Sea
 Damage is so severe that it is practically irreversible
 Sea can be stabilized with improvements in the efficiency
of irrigation, but would remain incapable of supporting
most fauna, and the current problems of pollution and
lost habitat is likely to go unaddressed
 Substantial but feasible irrigation improvements, and
some reduction in cropland, would allow partial
restoration of the sea, though it would still be incapable
of supporting its former fisheries
Measures to Save Aral Sea
 Urbanization, combined with large revenues from oil and
gas projects, might facilitate shift from existing
irrigation practices
 Wasteful and inefficient Irrigation System developed
during the Soviet era needs to be modernized
 Genetically engineered crops that need less water
 Israeli engineers experimenting on an Uzbek cotton farm
claimed they had increased yield by 40% while reducing
water consumption by two thirds
Thank You
Amu Darya
Syr Darya
North Aral Sea