A documentary entitled Amu Darya: Missing to the River has been produced as part of Project Amu Darya and is a collaboration between students from Karakalpakstan This research is important for several reasons which is one of the most severe man-made ecological disasters in history the academic field is limited – outside of Uzbekistan the historiography of the Aral crisis is still a developing field the geographical scope of research is limited Research is often focused on the Aral Sea itself and does not take into account the impact on the wider region The personal experiences of those living along the Amu Darya River are often excluded from studies Amu Darya: Missing to the River screening – image: TCA The Amu Darya is one of the two main rivers feeding the Aral Sea Irrigation in the Amu Darya basin has been carried out for more than three thousand years the current Aral Sea crisis was caused by mismanagement during the Soviet and post-Soviet eras International donors have intensified their efforts to address the crisis the UN Multi-Partner Human Security Trust Fund for the Aral Sea Region had raised over $16 million to support communities affected by the disaster the fund helps mitigate the environmental and social consequences of the crisis President Mirziyoyev’s government has also lifted many data restrictions the United Nations conducted the first socioeconomic survey of Aral Sea communities Central Asian countries are also cooperating to solve the problem of water level reduction in the Aral Sea as a result of the introduction of water-saving technologies on 55,000 hectares of rice fields in Kazakhstan more than 200 million cubic meters of water were directed to the Aral Sea The Times of Central Asia spoke with Annie Liddell She shared her thoughts about the inspiration behind the documentary the team were inspired by Svetlana Alexievich’s book Voices of Chernobyl The author used oral interviews to highlight the personal stories behind the environmental disaster Liddell explained that the film aims to preserve the authenticity of interviewees’ voices and connect their stories of the Amu Darya’s past with the reality of its present state Local communities played a central role in the film’s creation Students from Karakalpak State University and Urgench State University contributed to the research Residents of Karakalpakstan and Khorezm also shared their personal stories and provided insights into their culture and stability The documentary depicts different historical periods and personal experiences and events from the 1930s to the present day The team spoke with interviewees of widely-differing ages including a 94-year-old woman and a 17-year-old girl These stories highlight the differences between generations in how people in the Amu Darya delta view water and environmental issues Liddell hopes the documentary will raise awareness about the impact of human activities in environmental problems “Many people in the Aral Sea Region are not aware or are reluctant to talk about the fact that the Aral Sea Crisis was caused by unsustainable water management,” she noted; “but if we do not address this fact we cannot combat ongoing water management problem.” The team has ambitious plans for the future to improve communication and youth education on the crisis “We are working to expand our project’s work to create a multimedia educational toolkit on climate change in the Aral Sea Region,” Liddell told TCA “A big issue surrounding the Aral Sea Crisis is that few people in Uzbekistan – especially young people – have access to information or education about the crisis.” The documentary also captures voices from the region former fisherman Oralbay Otegenov explained that the sea once provided ample fish for local consumption and export we would catch a lot of fish for Uzbekistan and export them to other places The Aral Sea produced 30% of Soviet catch in the 1920s Drastic changes have since harmed the ecosystem, threatening many fish species including three unique species of sturgeon The loss of such species has disrupted the natural balance and affected the livelihoods of the local communities which previously depended on fishing but the ecosystem is now on the verge of collapse causing job losses and economic difficulties Seventeen-year-old Aynura expressed concerns about the health impacts of air pollution in the area chair of the Union for Defense of the Aral Sea and Amu Darya highlighted inequalities in the use of water use detailing how upstream users pollute the water leaving downstream communities to drink poison but we have discrimination by geographical location,” Kamalov stated Project Amu Darya is a testament to the urgent need to eliminate the negative impact of the Aral Sea crisis on humans and the environment The team plans to hold further screenings of the documentary in Uzbekistan Metrics details The rheology of the lower crust and upper mantle influences Earth’s plate tectonic style of mantle convection yet its spatial variability is poorly resolved Here we use satellite radar interferometry to map the delayed uplift resulting from the desiccation of the Aral Sea which has lost ~1,000 km3 of water since 1960 From this we constrain the rheology of the underlying upper mantle by elastic and viscoelastic modelling We find a long-wavelength uplift of up to ~7 mm yr–1 between 2016 and 2020 that decays radially from the Aral Sea This uplift pattern is best explained by viscoelastic relaxation of the asthenosphere below a strong lithospheric mantle We estimate that the asthenosphere has an effective viscosity of 4–7 × 1019 Pa s below 130–190 km depth slightly larger than the values inferred from post-seismic deformation at subduction zones but 1–2 orders of magnitude smaller than estimates from glacial isostatic adjustment in other tectonically stable regions Such uplift highlights the potential for human activities to influence deep-Earth dynamics and the interconnectedness of surface and mantle processes Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout Rheology of the lower crust and upper mantle: evidence from rock mechanics Deformation cycles of subduction earthquakes in a viscoelastic Earth Asthenosphere rheology inferred from observations of the 2012 Indian Ocean earthquake Lower crustal relaxation beneath the Tibetan Plateau and Qaidam Basin following the 2001 Kokoxili earthquake Constant strain accumulation rate between major earthquakes on the North Anatolian Fault Illuminating subduction zone rheological properties in the wake of a giant earthquake Spatio-temporal variations of afterslip and viscoelastic relaxation following the Mw 7.8 Gorkha (Nepal) earthquake Postseismic deformation of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake illuminates lithospheric rheological structure and dynamics of eastern Tibet Time-dependent deformation of the eastern flank of Mt Etna: after-slip or viscoelastic relaxation Imaging the distribution of transient viscosity after the 2016 Mw 7.1 Kumamoto earthquake Geodetic observations of time-variable glacial isostatic adjustment in Southeast Alaska and its implications for Earth rheology Observed rapid bedrock uplift in Amundsen Sea Embayment promotes ice-sheet stability Crustal strength in central Tibet determined from Holocene shoreline deflection around Siling Co A bound on the viscosity of the Tibetan crust from the horizontality of palaeolake shorelines Viscosity estimates for the crust and upper mantle from patterns of lacustrine shoreline deformation in the Eastern Great Basin Constraints on mantle viscosity and Laurentide ice sheet evolution from pluvial paleolake shorelines in the western United States The palaeolimnology of the Aral Sea: a review History of Aral Sea level variability and current scientific debates Changes in area and water volume of the Aral Sea in the arid Central Asia over the period of 1960–2018 and their causes Zavialov, P. O. et al. Hydrographic survey in the dying Aral Sea. Geophys. Res. Lett. https://doi.org/10.1029/2003GL017427 (2003) Inter-annual water storage changes in the Aral Sea from multi-mission satellite altimetry Key Morphometric Characteristics of the Aral Sea (CAWater-Info, accessed 20 January 2020); http://www.cawater-info.net/aral/data/morpho_e.htm Lower crust viscosity in central Tibet inferred from InSAR derived deformation around Siling Co Lake after its rapid expansion in the 2000s Mitigation of atmospheric phase delays in InSAR data with application to the eastern California shear zone A unified continuum representation of post-seismic relaxation mechanisms: semi-analytic models of afterslip Fourier-domain Green’s function for an elastic semi-infinite solid under gravity with applications to earthquake and volcano deformation The long-term strength of continental lithosphere: ‘Jelly Sandwich’ or ‘Crème Brûlée’ GyPSuM: A joint tomographic model of mantle density and seismic wave speeds Postearthquake relaxation evidence for laterally variable viscoelastic structure and water content in the Southern California mantle Afterslip and viscoelastic relaxation following the 1999 M 7.4 Izmit earthquake from GPS measurements Transient rheology of the Sumatran mantle wedge revealed by a decade of great earthquakes Stress-driven relaxation of heterogeneous upper mantle and time-dependent afterslip following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake Upper-mantle water stratification inferred from observations of the 2012 Indian Ocean earthquake Simultaneous inversion for the Earth’s mantle viscosity and ice mass imbalance in Antarctica and Greenland Glacial isostatic adjustment of Scandinavia and northwestern Europe and the radial viscosity structure of the Earth’s mantle Viscosity structure of the crust and upper mantle in western Nevada from isostatic rebound patterns of the late Pleistocene Lake Lahontan high shoreline Toward full exploitation of coherent and incoherent information in Sentinel-1 TOPS data for retrieving surface displacement: application to the 2016 Kumamoto (Japan) earthquake Accuracy assessment of the global TanDEM-X digital elevation model with GPS data Generation and performance assessment of the global TanDEM-X digital elevation model High-resolution surface velocities and strain for Anatolia from Sentinel-1 InSAR and GNSS data Study of systematic bias in measuring surface deformation with SAR interferometry Nature and structural heterogeneities of the lithosphere control the continental deformation in the northeastern and eastern Iranian plateau as revealed by shear-wave splitting observations Greenland and Gulf of Alaska land-ice evolution from an iterated GRACE global mascon solution Improved methods for observing Earth’s time variable mass distribution with GRACE using spherical cap mascons The global water resources and use model WaterGAP v2.2d: model description and evaluation PCR-GLOBWB 2: a 5 arcmin global hydrological and water resources model LITHO1.0: an updated crust and lithospheric model of the Earth The effective elastic thickness (Te) of continental lithosphere: what does it really mean Rheological stratification of the lithosphere Effects of pressure on high-temperature dislocation creep in olivine Thermal structure of oceanic and continental lithosphere Fan, W. et al. InSAR data, optimal viscoelastic model and input files used in: Weak asthenosphere beneath the Eurasian interior inferred from Aral Sea desiccation. Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7856136 (2025) Download references This work is funded by the National Science Foundation of China 42021003 (T.W.) and National Science Foundation EAR-1848192 (S.B.) Xu from East China University of Technology for their help in data processing and model simulation State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics and Forecasting Southern University of Science and Technology supervised and acquired funding for the project and provided advice on InSAR processing performed the InSAR processing and viscoelastic modelling supervised and provided advice on viscoelastic modelling performed gravity data processing and hydrological model interpretation provided the large-scale InSAR processing software All the authors contributed to the interpretation of the observations and the preparation of the paper The authors declare no competing interests Simon Lamb and Tim Wright for their contribution to the peer review of this work in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Spatial-temporal baselines of the Sentinel-1 SAR images we processed with track number indicated to the top left with AT and DT indicating ascending and descending tracks Black circles represent SAR images with x-axis the acquisition dates and y-axis the perpendicular baselines with respect to the reference image Black lines indicate short-term interferograms for estimating atmospheric phase and red line indicate long-term interferograms for estimating cumulative deformation Colored overlapping areas are imaged with at least three tracks The uncertanties are the differences between one track and precition from randomly selected one ascending and one descending track Spatial distribution of the water depths (water level minus the elevation of the lake bottom) of the Aral Sea on each three years derived from reported water volumes and AW3D DEM misfit between the 6 tracks in LOS direction of InSAR observation and the viscoelastic model shown as a function of the asthenosphere viscosity and depth misfit between the vertical InSAR observation and the viscoelastic model The color map represents the RMSE of difference of observation and model The dashed line contours show the low-misfit area and display specific values a, Cumulative vertical displacements (2016-2020) from InSAR with model prediction and residual. Red indicates uplift. b, Profile of observation and model (dashed areas and lines in a), superimposed with model of optimal 4-layer model (red). The error bar is the same as in Fig. 3c Simulated vertical cumulative deformation changes of the 4-layer model with linear Maxwell rheology Black line shows the boundary of the Aral Sea in 1960 5-year cumulative deformation produced by three- and four-layer model without (a) and with (b) asthenosphere relaxation changes of the total water storage Mascon product (the average from CSR changes of ground water storage provided by the WaterGAP Global Hydrology Model (WGHM) and PCRaster GLOBal Water Balance model The colored image shows the vertical deformation predicated from our best-fit 4-layer model due to the desiccation of the Aral Sea from 1960 to 2020 a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law Download citation DOI: 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The issue is growing especially prevalent in Kazakhstan, where an initiative known as “Save the Caspian Sea” is beginning to take shape an environmental lawyer and chairperson of the Socio-Ecological Fund.  Nee’s initiative is largely Kazakhstan-focused it would have to involve other Caspian littoral states “We are hoping that this initiative would at least represent a necessary small step to make the situation more transparent at least on the scale of Kazakhstan,” Nee told bne IntelliNews.  “We are trying to engage all the Caspian Sea countries in the dialogue,” Nee noted “That’s why we are aiming to [eventually] engage with international transboundary cooperation as well.” “Russia and Iran will be a big challenge for us and for the [Kazakh] government [to deal with on the question of Caspian Sea preservation],” he said.  Kazakhstan’s contribution to the shrinking of the Caspian may be relatively minor compared to that of Russia from where the most relevant river flows into the Caspian originate But it is a team effort that would require both nations to take action and responsibility.   According to Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Ecology the sea has lost more than 22,000 square kilometres (8,500 square miles) of surface area since 2006 More than half of that loss has occurred along Kazakhstan’s northern coastline where the receding waterline has transformed former seabed into desert and stranded once-busy fishing ports The sea level currently stands at approximately 29 metres below global sea level Modelling by scientists at the University of Bremen indicates that the sea could fall by an additional eight to 30 metres by 2100 under medium- to high-emissions scenarios a loss of five to 10 metres is expected which would erase more than 100,000 square kilometres from the Caspian’s surface area — equivalent to the size of Iceland The causes are twofold: rising regional temperatures are increasing evaporation while river inflows are declining due to upstream water regulation and diversion is disconnected from the global hydrological system It relies entirely on a delicate balance of river inflow and evaporation As upstream consumption intensifies and climate patterns shift the imbalance will continue to grow.  More than 80% of the Caspian’s inflow comes from the Volga River which is extensively dammed and regulated along its course in Russia hold back substantial volumes of water for hydropower and industrial use before the river reaches its delta in the Astrakhan region Additional outflows through the Volga-Don Canal further reduce water available to the Caspian basin The second-largest contributor to the Caspian with the exception of an abnormal flood event in 2023 has also been seeing a steady decline in regulated flow of water Elevated water temperatures and declining oxygen levels have been linked to mass die-off events that have hit the Caspian seal (Credit: Aboutaleb Nadri The ecological consequences are becoming increasingly visible several mass mortality events involving the Caspian seal — a species endemic to the sea — have occurred along Kazakh and Russian shores scientists have linked the die-offs to elevated water temperatures and declining oxygen levels Rising salinity in shallow zones and a loss of habitat are also endangering fish spawning grounds and wetland biodiversity The falling water level is also reshaping coastal infrastructure Kazakhstan’s port of Aktau has faced navigational challenges as the shoreline recedes while Azerbaijan has reported difficulties maintaining full operability of the Baku port complex Transport operators have begun dredging efforts to accommodate the increasingly shallow waters there is growing concern over the spread of saline dust storms which pose risks to health and agriculture inland The dredging works are related to the Trans-Caspian International Trade Route (TITR) which links China to Europe via the Caspian The route’s importance began to grow following international sanctions on Russia over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.  Belgian engineering group Jan De Nul has announced the completion of dredging works at the Kuryk port The project involved deepening the access channel and turning basin to accommodate large grain carriers and container feeder vessels enabling safer navigation and improved cargo throughput as well as providing a critical alternative to traditional routes through Russia While one would hope that the benefits of dredging works would far outweigh the inevitable contribution to water loss the total water loss from all the factors combined is likely to harm the viability of the Middle Corridor.  Shiriyev has suggested that falling water levels threaten the economic potential of the trade route​ “Falling water levels impact every aspect of life threatening the efficacy and economic potential of the Middle Corridor,” he wrote.  Kazakhstan's Port Aktau is one of a number of ports that would be threatened by a further significant shallowing of the Caspian (Credit: Ashina Another minor contribution to the loss of the Caspian’s water levels in the coming years can be expected from the green hydrogen project meant to meet EU’s energy needs.  “The EU project that envisages Kazakhstan producing green hydrogen for Europe’s energy needs will also lead to some loss of water volume in the Caspian, as hydrogen production will rely on water from the Caspian Sea,” Nee said, noting that the volume likely will not be too significant. Nevertheless, every inch matters as the Kazakh oil sector continues to rely on desalination and river diversion projects for operational water.  The long-term projections are stark. Researchers estimate that if the current trajectory continues, the Caspian’s northern section — which is shallowest — could dry up almost entirely within decades. A 2020 paper in Nature Communications Earth & Environment warns of wetlands of international importance transforming beyond recognition, along with the displacement of regional fisheries and the collapse of local economies. “We do not exactly expect the Aral Sea situation for the Caspian - the worst case scenario will probably see the Caspian segmented,” Nee assessed.  Check the box to receive the e-magazine to your inbox every month for free Get notified when there's a new bne IntelliNews Podcasts added "It felt like a real catastrophe," says the environmental expert The water here was once almost 16 meters deep (52 feet) and full of big Once the world's fourth-largest lake, much of the salty Aral had largely disappeared by the late 1970s as the rivers feeding it were diverted for irrigation in the Soviet era to water cotton and rice fields By 2010, the surface area had shrunk by more than 50,000 square kilometers (19,000 square miles) The impact on the environment has been devastating. Dramatically rising salinity levels have led to the disappearance of many of the more than 30 species of fish caught for commercial purposes In her role as deputy manager of the Aral Sea Environmental Restoration Project in Central Asian Kazakhstan, Zadneprovskaya has spent the past three years working to bring life back to the seabed.  the setting felt crushing and almost made her want to give up Zadneprovskaya and her team have been planting black saxaul trees on a 500-hectare (1,235-acre) plot of land in the North Aral Sea region to help hold back the desert and make the area more resilient to the impacts of climate change.  Saxaul shrubs can stabilize the sand, helping to prevent soil degradation and reduce health impacts from inhaling potentially polluted dust.  Their roots can hold up to 8,819 pounds (4,000 kilogramms) of sand," says Zadneprovskaya as she runs her hands along the plant's spiny scales.  The bush is native to Central Asia and is a psammophyte, meaning it thrives in sandy soils where other plants cannot survive The Oasis project, as it's called The only way to make a call from the campsite is if someone turns up with a Starlink satellite kit — a rare but welcome occurrence for the team.  And they're constantly battling the sand.  "When a sandstorm hits, everything is foggy and opaque," says Zauresh Alimbetova, the head of the Aral Oasis public association The shrubs block the path of the drifting sand Alimbetova, 58, is from Aralsk, a small city about 74 miles from base camp. She first saw the Aral when she was four It splashed just behind the district hospital Alimbetova would often run down to the beach for a swim and an ice cream with her siblings "There was a Lighthouse Club and a Fishmongers' Club Kids went to the Seagull Nursery," she says A local factory supplied large quantities of fish to other Soviet republics The town was alive with the honking of ships' horns Sailors ran around in their maritime uniforms Captains were busy on the docks.   Aralsk's economy was dependent on the water rumors began to spread that the Aral was receding read in a science magazine that if the sea disappeared there would be nothing but sand and sand alone But that was what happened. The flow into the Aral fell from 43.3 cubic kilometers (10.4 cubic miles) in the 1960s to 16.7 cubic kilometers in the 1980s A local ship-repair yard was turned into a plant for fixing railway cars and a fish factory that employed some 3,000 people shuttered is a striking example of a fishing village swallowed by the sand The dunes have eaten their way up to the windows Others are covered with crumpled old newspaper But there are areas of the Large Aral Sea in southern Kazakhstan and neighboring Uzbekistan where the water will never return there is a pressing need to create new ecosystems — such as at the Oasis project.   long rows of saxaul shrubs stretch to the horizon in a patch planted in 2022 the fruit-bearing shrubs look like fluffy clouds of pink and yellow floating above the ground.  Keeping them alive in this hostile environment is difficult workers trapped sand and snow in the furrows that would later receive saplings This created a cushion of less salty ground around the roots.   "The seedlings were planted in March while they were still hibernating," says deputy manager Zadneprovskaya With cancer, kidney disease, and infant mortality among the region's worst health problems, creating "green belts" is an effective way to combat drift from salt and contaminated dust and improve public health.  But saxaul alone won't do the job. It is essential to integrate planting practices into landscape planning. "We have to decide what to do with the land where the shrubs are planted," says Talgat Kerteshev of the Kazakh National Agrarian Research University.  it is not the main component of a dairy cow's diet.  One of the approaches could be to pursue 'mixed planting.' This involves introducing several species of trees, shrubs, and herbs to grow together in a mutually beneficial way. Some of these can then be sold as herbal remedies "This is essential for the sustainable use of ecosystems," says Kerteshev.   Another challenge is involving local communities in the planting process eight of the 12 people engaged in the Oasis project are locals But it's just a drop in the ocean for the entire Aral Sea area Doing this on a larger scale could help push change.   Aigul Solovyova, chairwoman of the Association of Environmental Organizations of Kazakhstan has been conducting surveys for years.   7% of people in the Almaty region in  south-eastern  Kazakhstan were aware of climate change This year the figure has risen to 30%," she says is a gradual process that requires targeted interventions and regular calls for action things are looking up for the thin patch of saxaul shrubs at the Oasis outpost while yellow ground squirrels scurry by.  a new ecosystem — fragile yet bold — is gradually taking root.    Edited by: Jennifer Collins and Tamsin Walker Research for this article was made possible with support from the Pulitzer Center IDN-InDepthNews VIENNA | 9 February 2025 (IDN) — The Aral Sea was once one of the largest lakes in the world The surrounding regions in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have faced drought international cooperation has given the Aral Sea a second chance and a dam are driving the Aral Sea recovery while the Aralkum Desert has taken its place As the lake dried up, its remaining water became saltier, killing off most fish and plant life. Without the sea acting as a temperature regulator A layer of salt formed on the exposed lakebed Strong winds lift this salt and sand into the air spreading toxic dust laced with pesticides from old agricultural runoff These storms have harmed human health and ecosystems across vast distances The water supply of the region depends on two major rivers: the Amu Darya With many Central Asian nations struggling with water shortages international cooperation has become essential Kazakhstan had already redirected 2.6 billion cubic meters of water to the Aral Sea in 2024 the amount was just 816 million cubic meters To combat desertification, efforts have focused on reforesting parts of the former lakebed. Since 2021,the “Oasis” project has been planting saxaul shrubs on 500 hectares of land These tough plants have deep roots that can hold up to 4,000 kilograms of sand Unlike most vegetation, saxaul shrubs thrive in salty and arid conditions making them ideal for the extreme environment and create small patches of green in the desert Another key project in saving the Aral Sea is the Kok-Aral Dam Built in 2005 with financial backing from the World Bank this 12-kilometer-long dam prevents water from flowing out of the northern part of the lake water levels rose by more than three meters bringing significant ecological and economic benefits The fish population began to recover, and local businesses saw an economic boost. In Aralsk, a city that still lies 30 kilometers from its original waterfront, the dam has renewed hope Investments in the region are increasing as the lake shows signs of revival *This article first appeared in TheBetter.news—an international news sharing platform—on 6 February 2025 Original link: https://thebetter.news/from-crisis-to-comeback-the-aral-seas-recovery/ reports and viewpoints that impact the world and its peoples Its network spans countries around the world © 2009-2025 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters Terms of Use | Imprint | Privacy Policy Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. the areas’s inhabitants have suffered health problems at unusually high rates—from throat cancers to anemia and kidney diseases—and infant mortality in the region has been among the highest in the world A giant body of water has nearly disappeared over the last 60 years the Aral Sea — once the world’s fourth-largest saltwater lake — almost dried up in Central Asia Straddling the southern border of Kazakhstan and the northernmost part of Uzbekistan the Aral Sea was once a lifeline for the region who grew up in the Kazakh port city of Aralsk Their houses used to stand on stilts because the sea was so full that it would spill out past the boardwalk massive rusted metal cranes stand over puddles of rainwater where a large port used to be … By the time I graduated from high school there was almost no water anymore,” Zhashkenov said The Aral Sea is fed by two source rivers — the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya — which begin their journey in glacial mountains to the east and travel more than 1,000 miles to bring fresh water to the salty lake Irrigation along the two rivers has been essential for agriculture in Central Asia for thousands of years after the consolidation of Russian rule over Central Asia dammed and drained for growing cotton in the desert The Soviet Union continued in this tradition — except more intensively and unsustainably Its mission was to transform large swaths of Central Asia into cotton-producing zones By the 1960s, the Aral Sea, totally dependent on its source rivers, had shrunk in half. In the 1980s, there were reports saying that almost no water flowed into the lake at all Source: Scientific-Information Center of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia water levels got so low that the lake split into two separate bodies of water: the North Aral Sea while the South Aral has fragmented into several smaller bodies of water the Aral Sea had lost 85% of its surface area The shrinking of the Aral Sea has itself changed the regional climate — affecting glacier melt and the amount of water that makes its way into the rivers and the lake Central Asia’s temperatures are increasing at twice the global average rate, and the region’s water supply has dropped to about a quarter of what it was in the 1960s, per the Caspian Policy Center The stakes are high: If things continue this way in the next several decades parts of Central Asia could become wholly uninhabitable was born and raised in the Kazakh town of Akespe Now it’s a village almost entirely enveloped by sand Usenov spent his days fishing until the water became so salty that it burned holes through his cotton shirt the water became saltier and the fish died,” Usenov said The communities that had built their lives around the water no longer had work and Kazakhstan’s once-booming fishing industry collapsed Desertification ensued. The exposed lake bed, rich in salt and pollutants from irrigation runoff, turned into a source of toxic dust storms that caused elevated rates of tuberculosis Perhaps nowhere tells the story of the lake’s disappearance better than Moynaq it now stands at the edge of a desert was born into a family of fishermen here in the Amu Darya’s delta he would play on wooden boats floating atop a vibrant blue expanse of water “Life here — it felt like it never stopped,” Dospanov said and there’d be these massive dunes covering their windows and doors,” Dospanov said “People would breathe this in and get sick.” the fish-processing plants and canning factories are abandoned and the Moynaq port looks out onto a cemetery of rusting fishing ships for the last four decades — an eerie reminder of what once was many locals chose to remain and build their lives here younger generations now farm brine shrimp in an increasingly salty lake The story of Aral Sea loss took a turn in 2005, when Kazakhstan — with help from the World Bank — built an 8-mile dam as a last-ditch effort to save the lake’s remaining water coming in from the Syr Darya The Kok-Aral Dam was designed to contain and cut off the river’s flow from going south into Uzbekistan This dam successfully rejuvenated the North Aral Sea’s water levels asp and catfish returned to the salty lake grew up in the once-flourishing village of Tastubek seen here (center) with his wife and child he played in the rusted ships stuck in the sand “In one or two years after building the dam the salinity levels dropped and the water became fresh,” Ibragimov said “Nowadays we have 10 or so freshwater [species of] fish back in the sea.” Ibragimov is one of roughly 20 or so fishermen in Tastubek able to make a living off fishing Ibragimov and other fishers still worry about the future the sea’s receded about 200 meters from the coastline Its levels are becoming lower and lower — there’s less and less water,” Ibragimov said threatening the sustainability of the renewed livelihood of the North Aral The dam that contains the North Aral is too low has less and less water every year due to overuse regional mismanagement and the effects of climate change has been one of the first to feel these effects A few hundred miles south of the Kok-Aral Dam is the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan It is here that the Amu Darya begins to enter the southern portion of the lake the ecological situation here is more dire than up north The Kok-Aral Dam closed off any chance for water from the Syr Darya to flow down into Uzbekistan All that the region has to rely on for water is the Amu Darya Karakalpakstan is the most downstream region with the least power in deciding the use of Central Asia’s water Its residents have borne the brunt of the Aral Sea’s shrinking Karakalpakstan is home to an ethnic minority its own political leaders and its own ministries of water and agriculture But it still follows the political orders of Uzbekistan’s federal government in Tashkent Karakalpaks have long existed in a state of tension with Uzbekistan which in part has to do with their poor living conditions exacerbated by the shrinking of the Aral Sea Karakalpakstan’s fishing economy, which depended on water, disappeared along with it. Fisheries were shuttered, clean drinking water became difficult to come by and water for growing crops has become scarce Air quality, the climate, nutrition and public services followed in tandem. Karakalpaks suffered from exceptionally high rates of respiratory and intestinal illnesses. Tuberculosis grew to epidemic proportions For years, Karakalpakstan had the highest maternal mortality rate of any region of Uzbekistan Over the decades, thanks to local and international efforts, health care has improved in the region and some of the environment has been restored. Even so, Karakalpakstan still has the highest poverty rate in Uzbekistan Seventeen-year-old Aysulu grew up in Karakalpakstan Aysulu asked not to use her full name out of fear of reprisal Aysulu plans to study and live abroad Many families send members to study or work abroad in Russia in hopes that they will be able to support those back home Aysulu says she wants to return and build a life in Karakalpakstan Even though she worries about what the future could bring she has grown up surrounded by resilience While Uzbeks and especially Karakalpaks have learned to adapt to the increasingly changing environment since the loss of the lake Uzbekistan’s economy and agricultural system are still shaped by the legacy left behind by Russia’s czars and the Soviet Union which prioritized short-term profit in the name of progress over long-term sustainability “We are still in our minds in the past — we are still in the Soviet life a senior researcher at the Karakalpak branch of the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences and a Karakalpak environmental activist “That’s our biggest problem: We’re unable to open our eyes for the future.” More than three decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan still directs 90% of its water to agriculture and has expanded irrigated land by 43% since 1991 Seventy percent of that land is devoted to cotton Uzbekistan is the world’s sixth-largest producer of cotton It’s also among the 20 most wasteful countries when it comes to water use compared with economic growth “the main reason of the disaster is not cotton itself — it’s bad water management.” He’s referring to a systemic problem: A lot of water is lost in the process of farming Farmers continue to grow water-hungry crops with low-cost water that arrives via Soviet-era canals Such water management practices can even be found in Karakalpakstan the most downstream region — where the land is at its driest and where the water is the lowest Khalif is among the many farmers in this region grappling with severe water shortages He did not want to be identified by his full name for fear of retribution by authorities He said about 86 acres of cotton and 25 acres of wheat — almost half his land — are state-ordered meaning the agreement he signed with the government specifically allocated certain parts of his land to growing cotton and wheat he can grow what he wants; Khalif (seen here holding cotton seedlings) chooses onions Khalif says he’d like to switch to less water-intensive crops like licorice or mung beans but can’t afford the financial risk of growing and selling a new crop In Uzbekistan, farmers don’t own their land — they lease it from the government. And even though, formally, there is no longer a state order for cotton and wheat, the leases that farmers like Khalif sign have guidelines for what can and cannot be planted on certain land government officials told NPR that farmers are free to grow what they like Most farmers are required to contract with a specific cotton cluster in the region which then sets quotas for how much cotton they need to produce Yusup Kamalov sees this as a systemic issue where farmers are coerced by policies and artificial market mechanisms to continue to grow cotton “It’s useless to tell farmers to save water because they don’t have any incentives or stimulus to save it,” Kamalov said In Central Asia, water is running dangerously low. The World Bank estimates that without climate and development action 2.4 million people across Central Asia could become climate refugees by 2050 If the region’s water crisis isn’t averted the future could be rife with tensions over water rights conflict and challenges in securing sustainable livelihoods for millions of people But what happens to the Aral Sea could play out differently in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan both the fishing community and Aral Sea basin experts worry that the Kok-Aral Dam’s success won’t be long-lived The current dam that contains the North Aral Sea is too low We need to decide whether to raise the dam or build a second one,” said Nikolai Aladin a Russia-based zoologist who has spent the last four decades studying the Aral Sea he was involved with building the precursor to the Kok-Aral Dam: a crude dike that contained the water from the Syr Darya in the North Aral Plans to build the second phase of the dam have been stalled for years This is the tragedy of what’s happening in Kazakhstan,” Aladin said As Omirserik Ibragimov pulls out his daily catch he says his only dream now is for the lake to be restored for good “My only dream now is that the Aral Sea will be again refilled it will get more salty and we will lose fish,” he said “Now that will be the biggest tragedy for the villagers.” Whether delays in efforts to restore the Aral Sea are the fault of bureaucracy Some blame Uzbekistan for stalling the process But time is of the essence: The Syr Darya is constantly losing water causing the North Aral’s levels to fall “The Kazakh part of the Aral Sea is in a very difficult position because we’re the most downstream point of the [Syr Darya] river,” said Zauresh Alimbetova the former deputy director of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan “We [the Aral Sea region] are dependent on all the countries through which the Syr Darya flows We are also dependent on neighboring regions and on places … like Kyzylorda that grow rice.” Upstream from the Syr Darya delta in the region of Kyzylorda also drink up a big portion of Kazakhstan’s water supply Much of the country’s farming sector receives state subsidies There’s also the inefficient way in which water is managed and used — mostly through Soviet-era canals “A lot of water is lost in the infrastructure that supplies the water,” said Bolat Bekniyaz Kazakhstan’s vice minister of water resources and irrigation Studies show that unlined canals can lose up to 37% of water before even reaching farmers’ fields Bekniyaz has dedicated his life to studying the Aral Sea “Our ministry is doing extensive work to reconstruct these canals we will gradually reduce water consumption the more water will flow into the Aral Sea ecosystem.” Kazakhstan has already begun relining its canals Bekniyaz says that conversations about a second dam are ongoing the government has launched efforts like growing drought-resistant shrubs near the Aral Sea to prevent further desertification and teaching locals how to improve soil conditions or fish in human-made ponds Now there’s also the added threat of climate change “We have to find ways to adapt water resources to climate change,” Bekniyaz said we can lose both rivers and the Aral Sea.” Uzbekistan is plagued by many of the same Soviet holdovers and infrastructural problems as Kazakhstan, except that it has less water — but uses four times as much to earn the same amount of income — and its economy relies even more heavily on agriculture There’s also the looming threat of Afghanistan’s new Qosh Tepa canal which will soon start taking a share of water from the Amu Darya — one of the two remaining lifelines for Central Asia Farmers in Karakalpakstan worry about what that could mean for them “We hear that up to 40% of the water that used to come here will be going there now,” one farmer named Timurat said He and other farmers who spoke with NPR would use only one name for fear of retribution by local officials who works for the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea and has been involved with official conversations about the canal say that the canal should not divert more than 20% of the Amu Darya’s flow — or could divert less if Afghanistan accepts help in constructing the canal from other Central Asian countries Taliban authorities predict that the Qosh Tepa will be completed by 2028 We are praying for more snow and rain,” Timurat said Uzbekistan says it knows it has a problem President Shavkat Mirziyoyev declared 2024 the start of an “emergency regime of water conservation.” With that the government has rolled out a plan that includes farmer education innovation programs and financial incentives for water-saving technologies There are also efforts to line irrigation canals all over Uzbekistan The plan is to move quickly and finish up by 2026 hydrologists and experts are pushing for a system that will better track water levels in the rivers canals and the former lake bed so that water use and availability can be accurately monitored Dedicated teams are negotiating with other nations for a fairer distribution of shared water resources along the Amu Darya And scientists and local and international nongovernmental organizations are working on developing more salt- and drought-tolerant crops for farmers to be able to grow and sell Baxitjan Xabibullaev runs an innovation lab in Karakalpakstan “To return the water to the Aral Sea seems like an impossible task to me,” Xabibullaev said Xabibullaev spends his time teaching farmers how to use drip irrigation and laser-leveling techniques so they can use less water to farm He shows them how to use runoff water to raise carp in underground ponds and then use that same water to grow strawberries in greenhouses the Karakalpak researcher and environmental activist thinks that while all of this is a step in the right direction But the question to them is — so many years already we’ve had this problem the problem and solution are simple: Uzbekistan is still stuck in the ways of the past prioritizing short-term financial gains over long-term thinking This project was sponsored by the John Alexander Project which supports foreign reporting in undercovered parts of the world Its Above the Fray Fellowship gives promising early-career journalists the opportunity to cover important but underreported stories from a location abroad Valerie Kipnis spent three months reporting along the Amu Darya and Syr Darya in both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan as NPR’s Above the Fray fellow Water delivery data from the Scientific-Information Center of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia Early aerial imagery of the Aral Sea via declassified U.S reconnaissance satellite imagery taken on Aug Satellite imagery of the Aral Sea area from 1984 to 2023 was obtained from various Landsat satellites the images are composites of cloud-free satellite images taken by Landsat during August and September of that year and a full-year composite was used instead The historical coastline of the Aral Sea via Natural Earth. Land cover and hillshade layers are from version 6 of Natural Earth (preliminary) There has been plenty of negative news of late about the damage done by global warming in Kazakhstan but the Ministry of Water Resources recently had a positive tidbit to announce: the Northern Aral Sea is making a comeback The Water Resources Ministry announced earlier in January that a conservation plan has resulted in a 42 percent increase in water volume in the northern section of the sea, which is surrounded by Kazakh territory.  The KazTAG news agency report added that the northern sea now contained an estimated 27 billion cubic meters of water and the sea’s salinity had experienced a drastic reduction The Northern Aral now yields an annual fisheries catch of about 8,000 tons, which is still just a fraction of the totals recorded during the Soviet era Once the world’s fourth-largest lake, the Aral Sea began evaporating in the 1960s. Its disappearance is widely considered one of the worst man-made environmental disasters on record The sea is presently divided into two parts and its present surface area comprises less than 5 percent of its size six decades ago.  The Uzbek portion of the sea, or the Southern Aral, is continuing to evaporate, creating a host of knock-on public health issues The Kazakh government revival plan centers on achieving efficiencies in water management and accumulation enabling the revival of the fisheries industry and fostering ecotourism Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter. Support Eurasianet: Help keep our journalism open to all As the Aral Sea has dried it, it’s left behind a new desert of salinized soil, affecting around 40 million people. Image by WaSZI from Pixabay I have witnessed how music can bridge divides and inspire collective action It is imperative for the global community to harness this same spirit of unity and creativity to address a dire and unprecedented environmental catastrophe that extends far beyond the regional scale: the restoration of the Aral Sea is one of the most severe ecological disasters caused by human activity Before it dried out in the 1960s due to unsustainable water diversion for Soviet agricultural purposes the Aral Sea region was a vibrant hub of life Fishermen brought back hauls of fish that fed families and sustained local markets with children playing along its shorelines The community was deeply connected to the sea 3.5 million people living in the region have experienced a significant decline in their health I feel a strong responsibility to advocate for sustainable solutions to address this pressing issue Drawing from my experiences in the world of music I see a powerful metaphor for this situation An orchestra comprises diverse instruments each contributing its unique voice to a collective masterpiece the restoration of the Aral Sea requires the concerted efforts of nations Just as a single violin cannot carry an entire symphony no single entity can resolve this crisis alone and a shared commitment to the greater good While fully restoring the Aral Sea to its former size is practically impossible the international community can work together to improve local conditions Collaborating with neighboring Central Asian countries Kazakhstan has been leading efforts to revive the Aral Sea region The country is chairing the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea for the next three years aiming to facilitate regional cooperation for sustainable water resource management This is being conducted through programs like the Aral Sea Basin Program–4 which encompasses 12 projects addressing climate adaptation the Regional Environmental Protection Program for Central Asia focuses on climate change adaptation Both programs aim to promote best practices in agriculture and regional cooperation advocating for collaboration among Central Asian countries to address the environmental crisis in the Aral Sea region aiming to cover 1.1 million hectares by 2025 Thanks to these measures, the Northern Aral Sea has increased its water volume to 21.4 billion cubic meters with 1.1 billion cubic meters added recently the sea receives 50 cubic meters per second which is almost tenfold higher than the previous year’s six cubic meters collaboration with international partners and a united approach among Central Asian countries are required Our region often has competing interests over water resources prioritizing agricultural and economic needs over environmental restoration The international community can sponsor and collaborate with Kazakhstan on several projects to restore the Aral Sea region Implementing sustainable agriculture initiatives such as water–efficient irrigation systems and crop rotation techniques will conserve water and improve soil health including building drainage systems and researching salt–tolerant crops are essential for enhancing agricultural productivity Building desalination plants and water purification systems will provide fresh water for communities and agriculture Regional water management programs with neighboring countries can ensure fair water distribution Community–based eco–tourism projects can create alternative livelihoods by promoting the region’s cultural and natural heritage will reduce reliance on fossil fuels and support sustainable energy use Public health and nutrition programs are also crucial to addressing the impacts of water scarcity and pollution an initiative launched by the Foreign Ministry of Kazakhstan I introduced a musical project called “Mission Aral.” Imagine concerts dedicated to the Aral Sea with musicians from around the world performing in harmony for the sake of the revival of the pearl of Central Asia Such events could galvanize public support and generate much–needed funding for restoration projects comprises four parts that depict the history of the Aral Sea The first part celebrates the sea’s former beauty The second part highlights the industrial era and the impact of canal construction in Uzbekistan which contributed to the sea's decline The third part portrays the devastation of the Aral Sea as I believe that with the support of the global community I hope to draw greater attention from people around the world to this ecological catastrophe It is then up to the international community to unite and right the wrongs of the past www.diplomaticourier.com Subscribe here Digital substations connecting Aral’s service stations for ultra-fast charging nicole.baer@siemens.com Aral Culture Summit 2025; image courtesy of Iwan Baan and ACDF From April 4 to 6, the first Aral Culture Summit took place in Karakalpakstan bringing together local and international scientists Their goal: to find creative ways to support the social and environmental recovery of the Aral Sea region The summit is the first in a series of global cultural initiatives taking place throughout 2025 and supported by Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation the summit is designed to act as a space for exchanging ideas and building new solutions and a pop-up market featuring local artists and businesses and science can help Karakalpakstan grow in sustainable ways and attract new eco-friendly businesses The first day of the summit was linked with the Samarkand International Climate Forum, which was attended by over 2,000 foreign guests, including top officials from the European Union, the United Nations, and Central Asian governments. They discussed urgent climate problems in the region Mirziyoyev also warned that water shortages will increase in the region by 2040 and stressed the need for stronger cooperation “We urge our partners to join the efforts and launch a Regional Program for Implementation of Water Saving Technologies in Central Asia.” Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev also shared concerns about climate challenges pointing out that the “temperature in the region is rising twice as fast as the global average.” Tokayev highlighted joint efforts with Uzbekistan to green the dried bottom of the Aral Sea “Central Asia is profoundly affected by the global climate crisis,” Gayane Umerova Chairperson of the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF) told those in attendance and intensified droughts are severely impacting agriculture No example illustrates this better than the tragedy of the Aral Sea But healing the land goes hand in hand with healing communities.” A striking example of the shrinking of the Aral Sea is the forgotten hamlet of Moynaq mostly fishermen and their extended families with the Aral Sea producing up to 30% of the Soviet catch and saving Russia from widespread famine in the 1920s Accessible only by air and ferry well into the 1970s Moynaq also served as a popular beach resort for well-heeled bureaucrats its airport hosting fifty flights a day at its peak the Amu Darya River no longer reaching its historic terminus digging channels through the sand in pursuit of the diminishing sea Moynaq’s fishermen discarded their ships where they became grounded the town’s population number less than 2,000 the remnants of the Aral Sea almost two hundred kilometers away the region is subject to searing summers and freezing winters a hundred types of fish and countless insects unique to the region all now extinct Given this startling decline, it is no surprise that some of the most powerful stories came from local leaders like Gulnaz Abutova one of the summit’s featured speakers and founder of the Clean Water project “I was born and raised in Nukus, Karakalpakstan, an area that lies in an ecologically vulnerable zone,” she told TCA. “Growing up, I often heard stories from the older generation about the once full-flowing Aral Sea and the profound sadness they felt witnessing its near-total disappearance.” Abutova said she clearly remembers when she saw the crisis with her own eyes I saw the full extent of the crisis with my own eyes Local people were forced to drink and bathe in contaminated water from ‘baspa taps’ — makeshift water sources,” she explained “I even saw people using water from irrigation channels (aryks) for cooking after attending a leadership program in Tashkent “I chose to focus on building water treatment stations for remote villages in Karakalpakstan aiming to address the acute water crisis in the region,” she told TCA “My proposal received unanimous support from the group.” “As we had no experience in the charity sector fundraising was our first major hurdle,” Abutova recalled but many charity organizations either didn’t focus on water projects or didn’t believe we could follow through the Uzbekistan Volunteer Association agreed to help but only if we set clear deadlines and targets providing clean drinking water to over 8,380 people “While numbers and statistics are important I always prefer to focus on the people,” Abutova said “Clean water has not only reduced waterborne diseases and improved overall health but it’s also strengthened immune systems because our stations enrich the water with essential minerals.” Abutova says there are plans for four more stations “Though I initiated the idea for the project I’ve stepped back from day-to-day involvement as the project has grown many individuals and teams are dedicated to its expansion and I continue to offer guidance on organizational matters.” Abutova hopes to turn the project into a registered NGO so they can raise funds on a larger scale and individuals can contribute through various channels,” she told TCA By sharing our story and spreading the word you can help amplify the impact of this important work.” Abutova believes local action can be powerful we hope that our efforts will inspire others to take similar actions in their own regions.” To learn more or support the Clean Water project, Gulnaz Abutova can be contacted at gulnaz_abutova@mail.ru or on Instagram @nazik_abutova and @clean.water.uz Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free feed 17-year-old Aysulu walks along the dried riverbed of the Amu Darya This episode was produced by Justine Yan and edited by Jenny Schmidt We'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at TheSundayStory@npr.org Listen to Up First on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Become an NPR sponsor LINK to images 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Aral Culture Summit (ACS) a cultural and environmental initiative to revitalise the Aral Sea region in Central Asia will take place from 4-6 April 2025 Organised by the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF) the Summit seeks to foster dialogue and action through art ACS will bring together leading cultural figures and environmental experts across two cities to explore and implement sustainable solutions that address the Aral Sea crisis and global climate challenges Aral Culture Summit 2025 will be inaugurated during the first Global Climate Forum in Samarkand (4th April) attended by regional and European heads-of-states and reinforcing Uzbekistan's commitment to the regional cooperation for environmental and social development Programme Highlights and ThemesAral Culture Summit continues in Nukus Karakalpakstan near the Aral Sea on 5-6 April and will host a multidisciplinary programme with panel discussions addressing critical issues such as environmental regeneration Chairperson of ACDF will announce a preliminary masterplan for the regeneration of Istiqlol reimagined by Ludi Architects as a permanent cultural and ecological hub comments:"Aral Culture Summit is a platform for change By integrating cultural dialogue with the climate agenda we are ensuring that the arts contribute to our collective commitment to long term sustainable development Our participation in the first Global Climate Forum underscores the critical role of culture to drive environmental transformation." aralculturesummit.uz | @aral.culture.summit Press Kit: LINK (including hi-res images) С 4 по 6 апреля 2025 года состоится аральский культурный саммит (ACS) культурно-экологическая инициатива по оживлению региона Приаралья в.. 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solutions an animated explainer series and live debate - find out why Water Matters We give you the latest climate facts from the world’s leading source analyse the trends and explain how our planet is changing We meet the experts on the front line of climate change who explore new strategies to mitigate and adapt Mention the Aral Sea or search for it online A lake once so vast it is still called a sea—teeming with life and supporting dozens of marine species and picturesque fishing villages—is receding and close to disappearing The concentration of salt and other minerals in the drying waters became so high that it is now almost as lifeless as the Dead Sea a salty desert with few desert-dwelling animals and toxic waste left behind by Soviet biological weapons scientists Salty dust storms continue to make local people sick The Aral Sea is situated in the Republic of Karakalpakstan spanning the northwestern portion of the country That their republic became synonymous with a disaster zone hurts the people of Karakalpakstan even more than the loss of their sea with help from regional and national governments to take action in showing the world that there is much more to this land than the Aral desert This region is the cradle of multiple civilisations fortresses and Zoroastrian “towers of silence” built centuries—maybe even millennia—ago it now has some of the world’s most fascinating archaeological excavation sites where the leaders of five Central Asian countries and the European Union agreed to strengthen cooperation on green transition and sustainable development gave Karakalpakstan the opportunity it needed to promote its cultural and environmental revival A new event was thus launched: the Aral Culture Summit everything disappears eventually—only the stars remain forever.” With these paraphrased verses from poet Ulmambet Khojanazarov First Assistant to the President of Uzbekistan “These lines… remind us that while landscapes shift and even seas may vanish something enduring remains: a sense of hope not only to reflect on what has been lost but to imagine together what might be revealed,” Mirziyoyeva said The summit hosts a multidisciplinary programme with panel discussions artistic performances and exhibitions addressing key issues such as environmental regeneration It brings together local and international activists artists and scientists to explore and implement ecological social and cultural strategies for the sustainable development of Karakalpakstan and for that reason UNDP is supporting this event UNDP has been present in Karakalpakstan since 1997 working closely with communities—from bringing clean water to supporting afforestation efforts to prevent soil erosion and environmental and health damage Innovation and new approaches are key to supporting this region,” Živković said Tourism is designated as one of Uzbekistan’s main development priorities and many summit participants believe Karakalpakstan—with its abundance of historical and cultural assets—can become a key destination “There is a lot of interest in the ‘kalas’—the more than 40 desert fortresses here,” said Sophie Ibbotson “Some of those have already been excavated has several projects in eco-tourism around Sudochie Lake There are also yurt camp initiatives and a workshop in Chimbay where visitors can watch traditional yurt-making and have lunch.” Even the Aral Sea disaster itself is becoming a unique point of interest “There’s a small focus on disaster tourism Many people want to visit the Aral Sea and what’s left of it—like the ship graveyard in Moynaq But the aim is shifting—not to look at destruction but to learn from environmental mistakes and understand the broader issues of climate change,” Ibbotson said The summit’s broader agenda includes digital development water management and climate-resilient agriculture The event is set to take place every 18 months with the next edition planned for mid-2026 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Pfizer announces the appointment of Elif Aral as Regional President for Middle East and Africa (MERA) effective September 2024 to spearhead operations in the region and bring scientific breakthroughs in vaccines in addition to overseeing all therapeutic areas within the MERA region Elif will drive strategic initiatives aimed at improving healthcare access and equity working closely with regional partners and governments to ensure Pfizer's leading portfolio and breakthroughs reach those who need them "I have had the privilege of witnessing firsthand how Pfizer has evolved and transformed the medical industry for nearly three decades – almost my entire career I have seen how the company's leadership prioritizes diversity not only for the patients in the markets they serve but also for employees at all levels and regions I am thrilled to embark on this new chapter with Pfizer and am particularly honored to be the first woman to hold a presidential role at the company in the region" She added, "As I take on this new role my foremost goal is to build upon the strong foundation we have established across the MERA region over the past 70 years I am deeply committed to ensuring that our global innovative treatments and breakthrough therapies are not only developed but also made accessible as we continue to bridge the healthcare equity gap working together with our dedicated teams and partners to drive meaningful change and improve health outcomes for communities across the region." Elif Aral began her journey with Pfizer in 1995 with a career marked by significant achievements she led Pfizer's 'An Accord for a Healthier World' initiative where she collaborated with cross-functional teams to provide current and future Pfizer medicines and vaccines on a not-for-profit basis in 45 lower-income countries The initiative aims to reduce the health equity gap by ensuring affordable access to essential medications and addressing systemic barriers that hinder patient access to healthcare Elif worked as the CV Metabolic and Global Brands Lead in Internal Medicine where she was responsible for overseeing a portfolio of over 200 medicines working globally to enhance performance and ensure the supply of crucial medications to patients Elif also served as the Vaccines Lead for Emerging Markets Elif holds a degree in Economics from Istanbul University and has completed executive education programs at Harvard Business School Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2496194/Pfizer_Elif_Aral.jpg International and regional experts addressed more than 180 regional physicians and healthcare professionals during the annual vaccines summit Pfizer commemorated its 175-year anniversary in Dubai on June 11 by reflecting on the significant contributions made in the global and regional.. Pharmaceuticals Health Care & Hospitals Medical Pharmaceuticals Biotechnology Between October 2024 and January 2025, one billion cubic meters of water will be directed to the Northern Aral Sea – 100 million cubic meters more than initially planned. Agreements with Central Asian countries will further increase this figure to 1.6 billion cubic meters by March According to Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation the current water volume in the Northern Aral Sea stands at 22.1 billion cubic meters up from 18.9 billion cubic meters at the beginning of 2022 this volume is projected to reach 23.4 billion cubic meters The reservoir’s surface area has also expanded reaching 3,065 square kilometers – an increase of 111 square kilometers over the past two years The rising water levels have had a positive impact on the ecosystem: salinity has decreased the population of 22 fish species has recovered and the annual fish catch has reached 8,000 tons a project to preserve the Kokaral Dam and restore the Syr Darya River delta is nearing completion Reconstruction work on dams between Lake Karashalan and the Syr Darya the construction of the Tauir protective dam and the renovation of the Karashalan-1 canal have already been completed the reconstruction of the Kokaral Dam is expected to be finished further reducing salinity and stabilizing water levels in the Northern Aral Sea Efforts to improve water efficiency in Kazakhstan’s Kyzylorda region have also contributed to the sea’s recovery The use of laser leveling technology on rice fields has saved 200 million cubic meters of water which has been redirected to the Northern Aral The leveling of 55,000 hectares of rice fields has also boosted crop yields increasing harvests from 40-55 centners per hectare to 70-80 centners per hectare To encourage the adoption of water-saving technologies the government has raised subsidies for infrastructure installation from 50% to 80% and increased compensation for irrigation water to as much as 85% Reforestation efforts in the Aral Sea basin are also ongoing 4.4 million seedlings were planted on the dried-up seabed of the Large Aral Sea an additional 428,000 hectares will be greened bringing the total afforested area to 1.1 million hectares Kazakhstan assumed the chairmanship of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS) on January 1 the IFAS Executive Committee has approved a 2024-2026 work plan which includes approximately 40 initiatives across 10 priority areas October 17, 2023JPEG View this area in EO Explorer A former island and a desert are among the newcomers to the dry landscape following the lake’s rapid decline Linear red sand dunes are interspersed with salt-encrusted white playa lakes in Australia’s fourth-largest desert Linear dunes and ephemeral streams converge on the eastern margin of the Simpson Desert in a region known for its floods this natural-color image shows dust hovering over the Taklimakan Desert initiated in response to the catastrophic shrinkage of the Aral Sea focuses on the portion of the sea fed by the Syr Darya River The North Aral Sea separated from the South Aral Sea in 1987-1988 due to declining water levels caused by extensive water diversion for agriculture Nurzhigitov discussed plans for the second phase of the project Kazakhstan directed approximately 2.6 billion cubic meters of water into the Aral Sea a dramatic increase compared to 816 million cubic meters in 2022 Nurzhigitov attributed the project’s success to the efficient distribution of water from the transboundary Syr Darya River achieved through close cooperation with upstream countries “These figures are the result of systematic work over the past two years We [Kazakhstan] have reached a mutual understanding with neighboring countries on the conservation and fair distribution of water resources in transboundary rivers,” Nurzhigitov said The minister emphasized that the project’s ultimate goal is to improve the region’s ecology and enhance the quality of life for local communities The restoration of the North Aral Sea has become a symbol of Kazakhstan’s commitment to addressing ecological challenges while fostering sustainable development By prioritizing cooperation with regional partners and implementing systematic water management strategies the initiative offers hope for reversing decades of environmental degradation and improving economic opportunities for communities in the region You don't have permission to access the page you requested What is this page?The website you are visiting is protected.For security reasons this page cannot be displayed has lost over 90% of its area over the last few decades and the unique flora and fauna of the Aral region are facing extinction While various projects were initiated by the countries in the region and international organizations the region remains one of the biggest environmental crises in the world and there is not much global awareness about it Located between Northern Uzbekistan and Southern Kazakhstan the Aral Sea was once a huge lake with an area of over 68,000 square kilometers (over 26,000 square miles) the Aral Sea relied on the Amu Darya and Syrdarya water from those rivers did not reach the Aral Sea and today the current area of the Aral Sea is just around 3500 square kilometers (1300 square miles) the problem is affecting every part of people’s lives in that area it had devastating consequences for the region’s biodiversity the dried part of the Aral Sea turned into a salt desert which is now called “Aralkum.” Aralkum now covers over 4 million hectares The decline in freshwater inflow has also led to increased salinity levels which caused an unsuitable environment for a lot of native plant and animal species In the second half of the twentieth century and more than 40 bird species are now labeled as "endangered." Additionally 12 of 28 fish types are also expected to vanish The Aral Sea crisis has severely impacted the economies of the surrounding regions As the sea dried up and salinity levels increased the once-prosperous fishing industry collapsed Many fish species could not survive the harsh conditions leading to the loss of livelihoods for thousands of fishermen The decline in fish stocks forced many to abandon their homes in search of alternative employment and increased desertification has rendered approximately 50,000 hectares of farmland unusable in recent years making it hard for local people to feed their domestic animals the salt from the Aralkum desert spreads around the region food security is also a major problem in the Aral region as people are not able to do agriculture on their lands Dust storms in the Aral region also impact public health The number of people with breathing problems increased and the number of anemia cases went up 20 times compared to statistics from the 1960s lack of water resources and food security also caused other types of health problems in the region Women and children are the most vulnerable populations in this environmental health crisis due to the highly polluted and salinated water used for drinking and the dried seabed the number of low birthweight cases has increased in the region The impact of the Aral Sea crisis extends beyond the immediate region affecting broader environmental and climate patterns The creation of the Aralkum desert has contributed to regional climate changes Winter temperatures have dropped by an average of two degrees Celsius while summer temperatures have risen by two degrees These changes have shortened the growing season and increased the frequency of extreme weather events all of which have had a ripple effect on agricultural production across the Aral and nearby regions the dust storms originating from the Aral Sea basin reached as far as the Tien Shan and Pamir mountains causing glaciers on those mountains to melt faster Recognizing the severity of the Aral Sea crisis both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have taken various steps to reduce the negative impacts of the Aral issue Uzbekistan has been implementing saxaul planting projects to reduce dust storms in the region Saxaul is a type of desert plant that often grows in Central Asian deserts It differs from other plants with its long roots and ability to strengthen mobile sands and slow down desertification several wells were dug to supply local people with water and artificial lakes were created to water animals in the Aral region Uzbekistan also developed the tourism potentials of the Aral region; now tourists from all over the world come to experience the unique Aral environment watch the mysterious ship graveyard near the Aral Sea and enjoy the hospitality of Karakalpak people who are a local minority living in this region Kazakhstan also took several steps towards restoring Aral’s ecological balance Kazakhstan built Kok-Aral Dam with the support of the World Bank in 2005 The dam helped the country to partially revive the fishing industry in the northern basin of the Aral Sea Kazakhstan also planted saxauls to prevent desertification and sandstorms Although Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan implemented different projects to reduce the negative impact of the Aral crisis a lot more should be done to improve the people’s lives and prevent climate migration By raising global awareness about the issue it would be possible to find some innovative solutions for ecological challenges in the region and attract investors to develop the area offering employment opportunities to local people and developing the local economy the Aral crisis is one of the largest environmental issues in the world affecting millions of people in Central Asia From accelerating the melting process in Tien Shan and Pamir glaciers to affecting public health in the Aral region While several projects were initiated with the support of international organizations like the World Bank and the UNDP the region remains a neglected problem with a lack of global awareness NPR reports on the drying Central Asia water sources The Aral Sea has been drying for the past 60 years much of the region will become uninhabitable Hyundai Connected Mobility has announced a collaboration with Aral pulse one of the largest high-power charging (HPC) providers in Germany This partnership introduces two new Aral pulse subscription packages within Charge myHyundai offering Hyundai EV owners significantly reduced charging rates at Aral pulse charging points Hyundai EV owners can register for Charge myHyundai the company’s pan-European public charging solution additionally to the usual Charge myHyundai functions they can now access two monthly subscriptions: Aral pulse Light and Aral pulse Premium Aral pulse subscriptions with Charge myHyundai The current price per kWh will be displayed in the Charge myHyundai app or on the website before starting the charging session Aral pulse offers around 2,700 charging points at approximately 400 sites across Germany In addition to the attractive packages and ultra-fast charging Aral pulse enhances the customer experience with exclusive amenities like on-site staff as almost all charging points are located at an Aral retail site Initially available in Germany from August Hyundai Connected mobility is looking into options to further expand similar offerings to other markets Hyundai remains committed to the future of electric mobility by continuously supporting the development of charging infrastructure across the continent with partners such as Digital Charging Solutions (DCS) Charge myHyundai users have access to a pan-European public charging network with more than 775,000 charging points in 30 European countries Drivers of Hyundai EVs also benefit from different tariffs for various driving needs straightforward access with a single RFID card or the app as well as one monthly invoice for all charging sessions they can enjoy ultra-fast charging and a seamless EV charging experience using Plug & Charge  at an even more competitive price Digital Charging Solutions GmbH (DCS) develops digital charging solutions for automotive OEMs and fleet operators making it one of the key global drivers of the shift to electromobility DCS's white label charging solutions enable OEMs and fleet operators to realize their electromobility strategies With DCS's own charging service CHARGE NOW EV drivers also benefit directly from access to one of the largest charging networks in Europe DCS makes charging at charging stations easy Digital Charging Solutions GmbH offers access to one of the largest charging networks in Europe with more than 800,000 charging points in 31 markets worldwide (Europe and Japan) and cross-border charging Digital Charging Solutions GmbH has been part of the mobility joint venture of the BMW Group and Daimler AG Further information on the CHARGE NOW charging service: https://chargenow.com/web/de/cn-de More details about fleets and charging: https://chargenowforbusiness.com/web/fleet-global Hyundai Motor Company and Plus unveiled a shared vision at the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo 2025 in Anaheim Hyundai Motor Group today outlined action plans to establish a waste-to-hydrogen ecosystem in West Java Province Hyundai today announced its collaboration with Gameloft’s popular racing game Executive & Internal Communications Expert Corporate & Brand Communications Expert © Copyright 2025 Hyundai Motor Company We use cookies for analysing our own services and to show ads which are relevant for you based on your browsing habits. 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For more information click here. 3D Printing Top Workplaces Industry News Siemens receives order from Aral Pulse to monitor charging at 300 stations in Germany ZUG, Switzerland, Feb 6, 2025 – Siemens Smart Infrastructure has been awarded a five-year contract by Aral pulse to deploy Electrification X from the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio for its Aral e-mobility brand Using Electrification X allows Aral pulse to centrally operate optimize and secure Aral charging stations with ultra-fast electric vehicle charging technology Siemens has delivered and commissioned in the past four years 300 intelligent substations and connected them to Electrification X The digital substations powering the charging infrastructure for electric cars and trucks have an output of up to 400 kilowatts (kW) electric cars can charge up to 300 kilometers reach in 10 minutes “To make charging as quick as refueling vehicles with conventional fuels we’re investing in ultra-fast chargers with outputs of up to 400 kW Upgrades also require an efficient and reliable connection to the power grid That’s why we’re happy to have Siemens on board as an expert in electrical infrastructure,” said Alexander Junge member of the Aral AG Management Board in charge of the Electromobility division A dashboard provides insight into all safety-related messages from the individual stations in real-time Digital condition monitoring visualizes the entire energy distribution and all operating data at the medium- and low-voltage level and highlights issues across the locations A central service cloud for patches and updates user management with multi-factor authentication and a SIEM for attack detection make the systems NIS-2-compliant The cloud-solution Electrification X Dynamic Load Management provides transparency into the status and utilization of the electric vehicle charging network for efficient and optimized charging Dynamic load management and remote control of the digital charging stations make it possible to avoid potential capacity limitations by the distribution system operator which could result in costly violations “This project is a strong example of how we can connect the real and the digital worlds The substations are the physical heart of the energy supply for Aral’s charging infrastructure but without the connection to the digital world This central connection enables us to provide an efficient and secure charging infrastructure and pave the way for sustainable and electrified mobility,” said Stephan May CEO of electrification and automation at Siemens Smart Infrastructure the installation of 350 additional digital substations at Aral’s service stations in Germany is already underway and automate the challenging electrification infrastructure of commercial an open digital business platform to accelerate digital transformation and value creation the Electrification X IoT suite is developed according to the core design principles of interoperability For more information, visit siemens.com Photo: Derelict ships in the former port in Moynaq This article was issued by IPS-Journal Kazakhstan | 1 September 2024 (IDN) — As a violinist It is imperative that the global community harnesses this same spirit of unity and creativity to address a dire and unprecedented environmental catastrophe that extends far beyond the regional scale: the restoration of the Aral Sea Before it began to dry out in the 1960s due to the unsustainable water diversion for Soviet agricultural purposes scientists and citizens from around the globe Aralkum—covering over 54 000 square kilometres—and salinised soil Once-thriving fishing villages are deserted due to the outflow of the workforce pesticides and other agricultural chemicals left behind on the exposed seabed due to extensive water diversion and evaporation posing health risks to the 40 million people living in the Aral Sea Basin Those living in the areas closest to the Aral Sea have higher rates of cardiovascular diseases as well as psychological disabilities. According to the UN 3.5 million people in the region have experienced a significant deterioration in their health The impact extends well beyond Central Asia The desiccation of the lake has altered regional and global climates contributing to more extreme weather patterns and spreading toxic dust storms laden with pollutants across continents affecting air quality and agricultural productivity as far away as Europe and Asia The greatest threat now comes from toxic salts and minerals which are carried by winds and have been found as far as 1 000 kilometres away Aral Sea salts have been discovered in the peaks of the Himalayas and even in the blood of penguins in Antarctica innovation and a shared commitment to the greater good In collaboration with neighbouring Central Asian countries The country is chairing the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS) for the next three years aiming to facilitate regional cooperation on sustainable water resource management environmental protection and socio-economic development This is being done through programmes like the Aral Sea Basin Program-4 water resource management and ecosystem restoration the Regional Environmental Protection Programme for Central Asia focuses on climate change adaptation biodiversity conservation as well as improved water quality Both programmes aim to promote best practices in agriculture and regional cooperation Restoration efforts have partially revived the Northern Aral Sea, but challenges like reduced fish populations and rising health issues persist. To combat these, vegetation is being  planted on the former seabed to reduce dust and salt emissions This approach has proven effective in combating the increased sand and salt resulting from the lake’s drainage Since 2018, more than 1.73 million hectares of saxaul plantations have been established in the Aralkum Desert. This year, Kazakhstan plans to plant an additional 275 000 hectares to prevent dust storms with the aim of covering 1.1 million hectares by 2025 Thanks to the measures, the Northern Aral Sea has increased its water volume to 21.4 billion cubic metres with 1.1 billion cubic metres added recently the sea receives 50 cubic metres per second which is almost tenfold higher than the previous year’s six cubic metres leading to the return of some fish species and revitalising local fisheries there is still a lack of comprehensive regional water management agreements to equitably share the water resources of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers reforest the dried seabed and improve agricultural practices have been underfunded prioritising agricultural and economic needs over environmental restoration such as water-efficient irrigation systems and crop rotation techniques including building drainage systems and researching salt-tolerant crops Regional water management programmes with neighbouring countries can ensure fair water distribution Community-based eco-tourism projects can create alternative livelihoods by promoting the region’s cultural and natural heritage Public health and nutrition programmes are also crucial to addressing the impacts of water scarcity and pollution and improving the overall well-being of the community a musical project that chronologically depicts the story of the Aral Sea — from its former beauty through its industrial decline and devastation I hope to draw greater attention of people around the world to this ecological catastrophe founder and musical director of the first professional symphony orchestra in India Goodwill Ambassador of Kazakhstan and an ecological activist Original link: https://www.ips-journal.eu/topics/economy-and-ecology/echoes-of-a-dying-sea-7742/ [IDN-InDepthNews] Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search Abandoned ship on the former Aral seabed; image: TCA “Joint work has been carried out with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan approved water supply schedules are being observed,” Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Formerly the world’s fourth-largest lake covering 68,000 km² the destruction of the Aral Sea first dates back as far as the U.S finding his supply of American cotton under threat the Russian Tsar decided to use the sea’s tributaries to irrigate Central Asia and create his own cotton bowl With 1.8 million liters of water needed for every bale of cotton the sea level began to decline rapidly due to water withdrawal from the main feeder rivers the sea split into the Northern (Small) and Southern (Large) Aral reservoirs the rate of shoaling and desertification have continued to increase the land surrounding the Aral Sea was still cotton fields; but today it’s largely an expanse of salinized grey emptiness The desiccation of the landscape has led to vast toxic dust-storms that ravage around 1.5 million square kilometers these storms – visible from space – used to occur once every five years the Aral had shrunk to one-tenth its original size the eastern part of the Southern Lake dried up completely and the sea’s area reached a historical low of 7,297 km² and the sea’s salinity has risen sharply Nevertheless, Kazakhstan still manages to preserve the remnants of the once colossal lake; the region’s fisheries and farms continue and rare species of birds still inhabit the lands surrounding the shoreline most scientists say restoring the Aral Sea completely is impossible but Kazakhstan is attempting to preserve the Northern portion sometimes referred to as the “Small Aral Sea.” In 1993 the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFSAS) was established and Tajikistan in this most challenging of tasks the water area stood at approximately 36,000 km² and in 2001 Vozrozhdeniya (Renaissance) Island became connected to the mainland Vozrozhdeniya contains the ruins of the Soviet-era Aralsk-7 biological weapons facility Covered in telegraph poles set one and a half kilometers apart sensors on the island’s testing range measured the effects of smallpox Hundreds of tons of anthrax were buried here over the decades and covered only in bleach as a de-contaminant Vacated in haste upon the collapse of the Soviet Union its anthrax canisters were purportedly decontaminated by the U.S stretching from the Kokaral Peninsula to the mouth of the Syr Darya with a hydro-technical gate which allowed the passage of excess water to regulate the reservoir level The dam separated the Small Aral from the Large Aral runoff from the Syr Darya accumulates in the Small Aral meaning the water level should rise and salinity decrease The cost of work of the project’s first phase amounted to $85.79 million of which the World Bank provided $65.5 million resulting in about 5 million internal ‘climate’ migrants,” Tokayev stated the fund has become the essential institution of regional cooperation in the issues of trans-boundary water resources sharing and solving environmental and socioeconomic problems in the Aral Sea basin It is difficult to overestimate the Fund’s role in ensuring Central Asia’s security IFSAS is one of the few successful regional cooperation mechanisms demonstrating Central Asia’s subjectivity in the international arena,” the President stated the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation reported that the situation in the Small Aral Sea is improving The water volume in the northern part of the Aral Sea has increased 1.1 billion cubic meters of water have entered the Small Aral since the start of the year the volume of water in the Northern Aral is 21.4 billion cubic meters “At the 86th meeting of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination the parties agreed that 997 million cubic meters of water will enter the Northern Aral during the irrigation season and the inflow will be at least 30 cubic meters per second the sea receives 50 cubic meters of water per second the inflow was six cubic meters per second,” the Ministry stated 75% of the Syr Darya’s flow is formed in Kyrgyzstan there are plans to plant another 275,000 hectares As the decimation of the Aral Sea is a global issue the ministry in Kazakhstan works in cooperation with numerous international organizations including the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFSAS) the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) Agency for International Development (USAID) Thank you!We have emailed you a PDF version of the article you requested You can also addnewsletters@iflscience.comto your safe senders list to ensure you never miss a message from us IFLScience HomeHumans Caused The Interior Of Planet Earth To ShiftComplete the form below to listen to the audio version of this article IFLScience needs the contact information you provide to us to contact you about our products and services You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time For information on how to unsubscribe, as well as our privacy practices and commitment to protecting your privacy, check out ourPrivacy Policy IFLScience HomeJoin for Exclusive FacebookemailTom is a writer in London with a Master's degree in Journalism whose editorial work covers anything from health and the environment to technology and archaeology. FacebookemailEditedbyHolly LargeHolly Large FacebookemailHolly is a graduate medical biochemist with an enthusiasm for making science interesting This was once one of the world’s largest lakes: A man stands by an old abandoned ship on the shores of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan.  Image credit: Alex Sipeta/Shutterstock.com Something strange is stirring deep beneath Earth's surface human activity set off a slow-motion shift in the molten rock of the upper mantle beneath Eurasia The changes are occurring beneath what was the Aral Sea Once one of the largest lakes on the planet the body of water has rapidly dried up since the 1960s due to Soviet irrigation projects that diverted its water to the arid plains of Central Asia to grow cotton over 93 percent of its water volume is gone The Aral Sea’s desertification is an environmental disaster that’s affecting the health of the local residents and wildlife it seems the drying of the Aral Sea may have shaken something much deeper the Southern University of Science and Technology in China and the University of Southern California have recently looked at the area using satellite radar interferometry Wenzhi Fan and the study co-authors found that the land around the dried-up Aral Sea is slowly rising by as much as 7 millimeters per year spreading outward across an area as wide as 500 kilometers (311 miles) beyond the original center of the lake A cross section of Earth showing its many layers including the asthenosphere and lithosphere.Image credit: USGSWhen the sea dried up the weight was removed and the surface began to slowly rebound upwards it still continues to rise at a very surprising rate is likely due to the syrup-like molten rock in the asthenosphere a part of the upper mantle just below the outer rocky lithosphere Since the weight of the lake has been removed the molten rock below the surface starts to relax and flow back into place very slowly in a process called viscoelastic relaxation like a memory foam mattress easing back into shape.  the researchers showed that this effect is occurring over 150 kilometers (93 miles) below the surface and is likely to be “sustained for many decades.”  “It appears that humanity has messed with plate tectonics just to improve cotton yields,” Simon Lamb, an earth scientist at Victoria University of Wellington, wrote in an accompanying News & Views article “Although the desiccation of the Aral Sea has been an environmental disaster reveal one positive side effect: it can be used as a tool to probe the planet’s deep interior providing new insight on the nature of the rocks in and beneath a tectonic plate,” Lamb writes The study is published in the journal Nature Geoscience plantsWhat Is A Dinosaur Tree? The Living Fossil Dinosaurs Once Munched On That's Still Around Today5 hours agolink to article animalsAncient Chinese Poetry Reveals The 1,400-Year Decline Of World’s Only Freshwater Porpoise6 hours ago19link to article T. Rex Leather, Glow-In-The-Dark Gas Clouds, And Musical Sea Lionslink to article The Five Most Common Headacheslink to article © 2025 IFLScience. All Rights Reserved. RSS You don't have permissions to access this page This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page This year, the Aral Sea received 977 million cubic meters of water, which allowed it to fulfill the water supply plan by almost 100% during the irrigation period This is the first time in the last five years it has got close to 100% Deputy Head of Aral-Syrdarya Basin Inspection Zeinollah Kaztoganov noted that this year the volume of water flowing into the Northern Aral increased to 60-70 cubic meters per second ten times more than in previous years when the figure was 7-10 cubic meters per second the total volume of water in the Northern Aral is about 22 billion cubic meters more than 45 million cubic meters of water were directed to Akshatau which positively impacted fishing and tourism: water salinity decreased If the catches of local fishermen earlier were only 400 tons a year a 76-year-old fisherman from the village of Karateren who has been fishing all his life said that with the inflow of water into the Aral Sea there is a prospect for the development of fisheries and if the current water level in the Aral Sea is maintained which will help control water flows effectively and ensure stable water levels in the Northern Aral Sea The Caspian Sea—shared by Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan—is more than a vast body of water drawing unsettling parallels to the tragic decline of the Aral Sea—a stark reminder of what unchecked exploitation can wreak the Aral Sea has become a global symbol of environmental catastrophe Decades of excessive water diversion for agriculture have drained its waters leaving toxic dust storms and economic devastation in their wake and the communities that depended on them have been thrust into poverty and despair The Caspian Sea is now teetering on a similar brink water levels have dropped nearly three meters with forecasts suggesting a staggering potential decline of up to 18 meters by the end of this century shorelines have receded by as much as 18 kilometers the Caspian risks becoming yet another cautionary tale of irreversible environmental collapse The endemic Caspian seal population has plummeted from over a million to just 70,000 almost all Caspian sturgeon species were listed as critically endangered in 2022 These figures underscore the urgent need to protect the fragile ecosystems that sustain both marine life and human livelihoods The Aral Sea’s collapse extended far beyond environmental damage its water had grown so salty that only flounders could survive echoes of this devastation reverberate around the Caspian a village near Kazakhstan’s Karachaganak oil field toxic emissions led to severe health crises forcing the community to relocate—a haunting preview of what could unfold on a larger scale Fishing communities are especially vulnerable As fish stocks dwindle and water quality deteriorates Industries dependent on the Caspian’s vitality For the millions who rely on this vital resource The Aral Sea’s downfall stemmed from the pursuit of short-term economic gain at the expense of sustainability Decades of oil and gas extraction have polluted its waters and left its ecosystems fragile Many of the contracts governing these operations were inked in an era of lax environmental oversight and the persistent lack of transparency exacerbates the harm while sidelining local communities and civil society have a narrow but critical window to avert further disaster enforcing stricter environmental regulations and ensuring transparency in industrial operations are non-negotiable steps must also take priority to repair the damage already inflicted The Caspian Sea’s survival transcends regional boundaries; it is a global responsibility It stands as both a cautionary tale of environmental neglect and a beacon of potential redemption By learning from past mistakes and embracing sustainable practices we can preserve the Caspian as a source of life We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings we will not be able to save your preferences This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again More information about our Cookie Policy Not even a drop of the Amu Darya is nowadays reaching the Aral Sea according to reporters who travelled the length of the Central Asian river gathering reports on the collapse of an ecosystem that survived for millennia before human activities triggered its destruction The Amu Darya fed what was once the world's third-largest lake from the south (the Syr Darya did the same from the east) but by now, as VOA reported on October 18 not even dribs and drabs of the river reach the meagre strips of water that make up what remains of the Aral All of the Amu Darya—a river created by the convergence of the Vakhsh and Panj rivers in the mountains between Afghanistan and Tajikistan—is these days channelled for human use ends with something of a journey to nowhere “The Amu Darya is now fully utilised for agriculture and other economic needs,” Rustam Saparbayev, deputy chairman of the parliament of Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan's northwestern part, told VOA (Uzbek news video account of report here) With all of the river directed into five canals in southern Karakalpakstan Saparbayev lamented that there isn’t enough water for both the sea and the population Our priority is the immediate needs of our people We rely on the Amu Darya to grow our crops and livestock Water is extremely scarce in this environment and we must prioritise food and water security,” he was further reported as saying it might be said that the loss of the tiny amount of the Amu Darya that was still reaching the Aral was a heavy moment only in terms of symbolism—the environmental disaster sparked in the 1960s as the Soviets pursued irrigation plans based on water diversion to drive up production of cotton long ago destroyed the main body of the sea For a view of any substantial remnants of the Aral the traveller must head north to Kazakhstan where there has been some success in reviving parts of the sea’s northern shores the Karakalpaks appear to be in a near-hopeless situation No matter what we hear from the UN and other organisations there won’t be significant change without concrete action,” said Saparbayev “There are international missions to save exotic animals and historic sites the solution is bringing water — but from outside our region as it can no longer come from the Amu Darya,” he said