The Aral Sea – what went wrong? - How to achieve sustainable food production for increased profit and well-being

Changes in the water volume of the Aral Sea after 1960.
Source: SpringerLink

From the early years of the Soviet Union, the region around the Aral Sea was viewed as being ideal for the production of cotton. All it needed was water, so irrigation canals were run in from the two rivers (the Amu-darya and Syr-darya) that fed the Aral Sea. The results weren’t unexpected, as the poorly-built irrigation canals were pulling between 20 and 60 cubic kilometers of water out of the rivers per year. The Aral simply could not handle the loss of so much water, and the sea level started to drop.

As cotton production increased, more water had to be diverted, but at the same time, more herbicides and pesticides had to be used. These chemicals ended up in what little water actually made it to what was once the Aral Sea, only to dry out on the sere landscape of the former lakebed. Contaminated dust and topsoil from the crops would also blow into the basin and accumulate.

In recent years, Kazakhstan, the wealthier of the two nations that border the Aral Sea, has tried to maintain at least some of the former lake by repairing irrigation canals to improve water flow. More importantly, they built a dam to separate the North Aral Sea from the South. Since the dam was complete in 2005, water levels in the North Aral have risen by 8 meters, fish stocks are starting to come back, and the lake’s salinity has decreased. There are even signs that the local microclimate is improving, with increased precipitation.

In the south, Uzbekistan seems to show little desire to rehabilitate the South Aral Sea. Cotton is the nation’s primary cash crop, and the people of this region are extremely poor to begin with. They don’t have the resources to upgrade the irrigation like Kazakhstan did, and they need the cotton crops. So they will continue to drain the river that should be feeding the lake. Rather than trying to rehabilitate the lake, they are instead discussing opening the desiccated lake bed to oil exploration.

The Aral Sea disaster was caused by human mismanagement of a natural resource. In the beginning, the Soviet Union simply did not care, and the Aral Sea was one of many Soviet projects with the stated goal of taming nature.
Source: Greener Ideal, June 7, 2010

For some further background information:

Aral Sea: Uzbekistan and UN to attempt revival of dried-up lake [14.07.2019]
The Uzbekistan government and the United Nations are trying to bring life back into the Aral Sea. After the rivers feeding it were diverted, the Central Asian lake and former fishing ground is now a desert – with poisonous salt storms and an extreme climate. Its disappearance has been described as one of the world’s largest man-made environmental disasters. But now the Uzbekistan government and the United Nations are trying to bring the region back to life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=_B-qlzhu4fc&feature=emb_logo

The Chernobyl of the East: Aral Sea Disaster [10.07.2019]
The Aral Sea is shrinking rapidly. What remains in place is another Chernobyl with a geopolitical fallout that is yet to come.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGwMEXYQE7E&feature=youtu.be

Filmed in 2017

The Cobra Effect. The Aral Sea was a vital piece of the local ecosystem around it. The lake began drying up in the 1960s as Stalin implemented a plan to grow cotton in Uzbekistan which the Soviets would export. With the newly built canals diverting water from the two main rivers feeding the Aral Sea, the sea started to shrink and the salt content to increase. Also used as a chemcial dumping ground, these have now been exposed and create severe health problems amongst the local people.

The Aral Sea Has Risen Again [01.06.2017]
Humans killed the world’s 4th largest lake, but now it’s coming back to life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_Bd2zgaIUo&feature=youtu.be

Aral Sea: The sea that dried up in 40 years – BBC News [28.02.2015]
The disappearance of the Aral Sea in Central Asia is one of the world’s greatest man-made disasters. In Kazakhstan, with the help of the World Bank, more than $80million have been spent trying to save the most northern part of the sea but this has only benefited a few hundred people. In this film, we speak to people still living in deserted fishing ports, to see how their lives have changed, and to find out whether they believe that they’ll ever see the sea again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N-_69cWyKo&feature=emb_logo

Kazakhstan’s Aral Sea was once the world’s fourth largest lake, a rich haven for fish, birds and other wildlife. It was also home to bustling fishing ports such as Aralsk. But starting in the 1960s, massive agricultural expansion saw much of the water from the two rivers that feed the lake diverted into thousands of canals to irrigate crops. This caused the Aral Sea to shrink by 70% and split into two.

Explorer/adventurer George Kourounis visits the Aral Sea in western Uzbekistan where wasteful irrigation practices by the former Soviet Union have drained most of the water, creating a vast ecological disaster. Rusting fishing boats lie in the desert sands that used to be rich fishing grounds.

Aral Sea Basin [5.03.2012]
The Aral Sea basin includes parts of Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Usbekistan. The clip show where of the waters of the amu Darya and Syr Darya originate, where they flow to and what problems exist in that part of the world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejODxV8gh9g&feature=emb_logo