Aral Sea
Geography H/W – The Disappearing Aral Sea
This essay intends to first introduce the disappearing Aral Sea, which due to the extensive agricultural activities devised by the Soviet government in the region, the former fourth-largest lake of the world is now the world's eighth largest lake. This has resulted in perhaps the world's most prominent man-made ecological disaster, giving its location and background knowledge with a map, and then describe its future in terms of how it is going to be utilized and what the consequences are, and then finally state what can be done about this “crisis”. @.
The Aral Sea is located in the Central Asian Republics of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Due to its location in the center of a vast mainland far from oceans, the Aral Sea maintains a continental climate. Temperatures in the region go up as high as 40 degrees Celsius in the summer and in winters the temperature falls down to -20 degrees Celsius with minimal precipitation. The main volume of surface waters is consisted of thawed water from high glaciers, feeding the two recently largest rivers of the region: the Amu Darya (Located in Eastern Central Asia, 2580 km long) and the Syr Darya: (2,220 km long).
It was generally very shallow, attaining a maximum depth of c.180 ft (58 m). In the 1950s the Soviet Union decided to cultivate cotton in the region, and since the early 1960s the Syr Darya and Amu Darya have been used for large-scale irrigation, causing a drop in the flow of freshwater into the sea. The sea is, as a result, now greatly reduced, mainly occupying three basins in the central, western, and northern sections of its lakebed. It is about a third of its former size in area and less than an eighth in volume.
The sea formerly supported local fishing and was navigable from Muinak to Aral. As the Aral has retreated from its former shores, due to the combined effects of evaporation and water diversion, major environmental problems have resulted. The quality
This essay intends to first introduce the disappearing Aral Sea, which due to the extensive agricultural activities devised by the Soviet government in the region, the former fourth-largest lake of the world is now the world's eighth largest lake. This has resulted in perhaps the world's most prominent man-made ecological disaster, giving its location and background knowledge with a map, and then describe its future in terms of how it is going to be utilized and what the consequences are, and then finally state what can be done about this “crisis”. @.
The Aral Sea is located in the Central Asian Republics of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Due to its location in the center of a vast mainland far from oceans, the Aral Sea maintains a continental climate. Temperatures in the region go up as high as 40 degrees Celsius in the summer and in winters the temperature falls down to -20 degrees Celsius with minimal precipitation. The main volume of surface waters is consisted of thawed water from high glaciers, feeding the two recently largest rivers of the region: the Amu Darya (Located in Eastern Central Asia, 2580 km long) and the Syr Darya: (2,220 km long).
It was generally very shallow, attaining a maximum depth of c.180 ft (58 m). In the 1950s the Soviet Union decided to cultivate cotton in the region, and since the early 1960s the Syr Darya and Amu Darya have been used for large-scale irrigation, causing a drop in the flow of freshwater into the sea. The sea is, as a result, now greatly reduced, mainly occupying three basins in the central, western, and northern sections of its lakebed. It is about a third of its former size in area and less than an eighth in volume.
The sea formerly supported local fishing and was navigable from Muinak to Aral. As the Aral has retreated from its former shores, due to the combined effects of evaporation and water diversion, major environmental problems have resulted. The quality