THE ARAL SEA CRISIS

The Aral Sea was a  lake lying between Kazakhstan in the north and Uzbekistan in the south and formerly one of the four largest lakes in the world with an area of 68,000 km² . The Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects.

The Aral Sea desiccation period was accompanied by climinate change. In the Aral Sea, there were strong softening Siberian winds in the winter and these winds used to  cool off the area in the summer. However, nowadays, summers are hot and short, winters are longer and colder. The exact temperature increase resulted from the Aral crisis. In short,  the origin of the crisis was shortage of water for irrigation and the result was drastic changes in  wheather conditions and high temperature levels.

Almost everyone in the villages which are near the Aral Sea used to fish for a living but in 1970s the fish died and the sea began to dry up because the climate began to change. The rain stopped .Thus grass dried up and the small freshwater lakes that once existed near the sea also disappeared. People who live near Aral Sea used to grow melons and other crops, ate them and sold them in the market. Thus, they made money ,but, now the Aral Sea is very small and the water is very salty so people don’t grow melons or other crops anymore.

It took just almost 40 years for the Aral Sea to dry up. If the Soviet government  had been aware of the Aral Sea desiccation, the Aral Sea crisis could have been  prevented so the Aral Sea crisis is a man-made environmental disaster and humans should learn from the situation.

GAMZE KARABACAK