Aral Sea

/ar"euhl/; Russ. /u rddahl"/

an inland sea between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, E of the Caspian Sea. 26,166 sq. mi. (67,770 sq. km). Also called Lake Aral. Russian, Aralskoye More /u rddahl"skeuh yeuh maw"rddyeuh/.

* * *

Large salt lake between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

It once covered 25,659 sq mi (66,457 sq km) and was the fourth largest inland body of water in the world, but diversion of the waters of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers for irrigation has led to an overall reduction of its surface area by half since 1960. Its volume has been reduced by three-fourths, which has led to an increase in salinity. Except for the southern shores, it is uninhabited.

* * *

▪ sea, Central Asia

Uzbek  Orol 

 a once-large saltwater lake straddling the boundary between Kazakhstan to the north and Uzbekistan to the south. The shallow Aral Sea was formerly the world's fourth largest body of inland water. It nestles in the climatically inhospitable heart of Central Asia, to the east of the Caspian Sea. The Aral Sea is of great interest and increasing concern to scientists because of the remarkable shrinkage of its area and volume in the second half of the 20th century. This change is due primarily to the diversion (for purposes of irrigation) of the riverine waters of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya, which discharge into the Aral Sea and are its main sources of inflowing water.

      The Aral Sea area is characterized by a desert-continental climate of wide-ranging air temperatures, cold winters, hot summers, and sparse rainfall. The rate of precipitation—an annual average of 4 inches (100 mm) in all—is only a tiny fraction of the lake's traditional rate of evaporation. The most significant factors affecting the water balance of the Aral Sea are river flow (accounting for approximately four-fifths of inflow) and evaporation, which formerly took out each year about the same amount of water that the rivers brought in. Climate may quite considerably influence the long-term variation in the sea's water level. Over the centuries, variations have exceeded 20 feet (6 metres), while annual and seasonal variations of between 10 feet (3 metres) and less than a foot have been recorded.

      In 1960 the surface of the Aral Sea lay 175 feet (53 metres) above sea level and covered an area of 26,300 square miles (68,000 square km). The Aral Sea's greatest extent from north to south was almost 270 miles (435 km), while that from east to west was just over 180 miles (290 km). Although the average depth was a shallow 53 feet (16 metres) or so, it descended to a maximum of 226 feet (69 metres) off the western shore.

      The sea's northern shore—high in some places, low in others—was indented by several large bays. The low-lying and irregular eastern shores were interrupted in the north by the huge delta of the Syr Darya and in the south were bordered by a wide tract of shallow water. The equally vast Amu Darya delta lay on the lake's southern shore, and along the lake's western periphery extended the almost unbroken eastern edge of the 820-foot- (250-metre-) high Ustyurt Plateau.

      The Aral Sea depression was formed toward the beginning of the Pleistocene Epoch (about 1,600,000 years ago), when the Earth's crust subsided and the hollow was filled with water—some of which came from the Syr Darya. In the late Pleistocene Epoch (from about 140,000 until about 10,000 years ago) the depression was inundated for the first time by the Amu Darya, which had temporarily changed its course from the Caspian to the Aral Sea. From the Pleistocene Epoch, the rivers' combined flow maintained a high water level.

 From about 1960 the Aral Sea's water level was systematically and drastically reduced because of the diversion of water from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers for purposes of agricultural irrigation (irrigation and drainage). As the Soviet government converted large acreages of pastures or untilled lands in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and elsewhere into irrigated farmlands by using the waters of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, the amount of water from these rivers that reached the Aral Sea dropped accordingly. By the 1980s, during the summer months, the two great rivers virtually dried up before they reached the lake. The Aral Sea began to quickly shrink because of the evaporation of its now-unreplenished waters.

      By the late 1980s, the lake had lost more than half the volume of its water. The salt and mineral content of the lake rose drastically because of this, making the water unfit for drinking purposes and killing off the once-abundant supplies of sturgeon, carp, barbel, roach, and other fishes in the lake. The fishing industry along the Aral Sea was thus virtually destroyed. The ports of Aral in the northeast and Mŭynoq in the south were now many miles from the lake's shore. A partial depopulation of the areas along the lake's former shoreline ensued. The contraction of the Aral Sea also made the local climate noticeably harsher, with more extreme winter and summer temperatures.

      By 1989 the Aral Sea had receded to form two separate parts, the “Greater Sea” in the south and the “Lesser Sea” in the north, each of which had a salinity almost triple that of the sea in the 1950s. By 1992 the total area of the two parts of the Aral Sea had been reduced to approximately 13,000 square miles (33,800 square km), and the mean surface level had dropped by about 50 feet (15 metres). The governments of the states surrounding the Aral tried to institute policies to encourage less water-intensive agricultural practices in the regions south and east of the lake, thus freeing more of the waters of the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya to flow into the lake and to stabilize its water level. These policies succeeded in reducing water usage somewhat, but not to the level necessary to have a significant impact on the amount of water reaching the Aral Sea. In 1994 these same states—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—established a joint committee to coordinate efforts to save the Aral Sea. The difficulty of coordinating any plan between these competing states, however, has hampered progress.

      In the late 1990s an island in the Aral Sea, Vozrozhdenya, became the centre of environmental concern. The Aral Sea derived its name from the Kyrgyz (Kyrgyz language) word Aral-denghiz, “Sea of Islands”—an apt designation, as there were more than 1,000 islands of a size of 2.5 acres (1 hectare) or more strewn across its waters. Many of these islands have joined the mainland with the shrinking size of the sea. By 1999 the sea had receded to a level where only 6 miles (10 km) of water were separating Vozrozhdenya Island from the mainland. This was of special concern because Vozrozhdenya had been a testing ground for Soviet biological weapons during the Cold War. In addition to testing done there on such agents as tularemia and the bubonic plague, hundreds of tons of live anthrax bacteria were buried on the island in the 1980s. In 1999 still-living anthrax spores were discovered on the site, and scientists feared that when the island was no longer surrounded by water, land vertebrates could carry anthrax to populated areas.

      Other environmental problems plagued the region as well. By the end of the century the Aral had receded into three separate lakes. The level of the sea had dropped to 125 feet (36 metres) above sea level, and the water volume was reduced by 75 percent of what it had been in 1960. Almost no water from the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya reached the sea, and, unless drastic action were taken, it seemed likely that the Aral Sea could disappear within 20 to 30 years, leaving a large desert in its place. The health costs to people living in the area were beginning to emerge. Hardest hit were the Karakalpaks (Karakalpakstan), who live in the southern portion of the region. Exposed seabeds led to dust storms that blew across the region, carrying a toxic dust contaminated with salt, fertilizer, and pesticides. Health problems occurred at unusually high rates—from throat cancers to anemia and kidney diseases. Infant mortality in the region was among the highest in the world.

* * *