Here is an image of a fishing boat in one of Central Asia's saltwater lakes
and here is an image of a deserted bioweapons facility located in a toxic
desert in Central Asia. This is the story of how human activity which blatant
disregard for nature turned a large and vibrant ecosystem into a wasteland in
the course of a few decades. Welcome to the Aral Sea which is technically
a saltwater lake lies in a depression in Central Asia, east to the Caspian Sea in
an area characterized by desert continental climate with hot summers
cold winters and sparse rainfall. At an average of 4 inches per year the rain
compensates for only a fraction of the water evaporation of the lake
Thus the Aral's main source of water are the river Sir Darya in Kazakhstan and
the Amu Darya in Uzbekistan. Despite that, the lake is the fourth largest in
the world with an area of 68,000 square kilometers. This however is an image from
the 1960s. This is what the lake looks like today. At about 10% of its area from
the 1960s the Aral Sea is mostly gone and widely considered as one of the most
dramatic examples of ecological disasters caused by human activities.
Despite the rough climate in the region the disappearance of the lake was not due to
a natural phenomenon but rather the product of geopolitics. You see today the
lake is located in the territory of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan however from
1925 to 1990 this was the territory of the USSR. Back in 1948, three years after
the end of the second world war the Communist Party began an ambitious
campaign to rebuild the Soviet Union's economy by unanimously passing the great
plan for transformation of nature. An initiative supported by Joseph Stalin
himself. According to the propaganda of the time nature itself would be subject
to the party's commands. It was the same propaganda that claimed the major rivers
would become machines rather than flowing uselessly downstream. In an attempt to
make cotton a major export of the USSR the Soviets diverted the two rivers the
Fed the Aral Sea for the irrigation of massive plantations in the dry but nutrient
rich Central Asian desert. Large-scale
irrigation canals were built but their poor quality made them very inefficient
with large volumes of water leaking out or evaporating before reaching their
destination. As a result by the 1960s between 20 and 60 cubic kilometers of
water that used to replenish the sea were being diverted away each year.
Uzbekistan did manage to become the largest exporter of cotton in the world
in 1988 however this came at a great cost. By 1989 the Aral Sea water level dropped
by 50 feet from its 1960s level. As a result the remaining water contained
three times higher concentration of salt effectively killing the lakes fauna and
the remaining fishing industry which once provided sustenance for many in the
region. Given that crop rotation was not used in the plantations around the lake
soil depletion began to take place. To counter that effect massive quantities
of pesticides and fertilizers were required. As a result the runoff from the
fields washed the excess chemicals into the shrinking sea creating severe
pollution. As the sea dried out the salt and chemicals that were once dissolved
in the water were picked up by the winds and spread across the region by dust
storms impacting the local inhabitants and agriculture. To make matters worse
the ones called Vozrozhdeniya Island located in the Aral Sea hosts a
Soviet bio weapon testing facility. Over the years this place became a true
living nightmare causing outbreaks of smallpox, plague,
typhus and other exotic diseases. But that's not all. The island is also the
final resting place for the largest anthrax stockpile in human history
This happened in 1988 when the Soviets decided to get rid of their arsenal
between a hundred to two hundred tons of anthrax slurry was hastily dumped in
pits and forgotten about. Thankfully those pits have since been neutralized
however half a century of open-air testing because left the entire island
contaminated. This is a problem that has only been amplified by the drying lake
and the resulting dust storms. After the breakup of the USSR the regional
governments tried to counter the declining sea levels through policies
but the lack of coordination resulted in further water depletion. Eventually the
shoreline receded further and the lake split into pools. In
Kazakhstan the north Aral Sea was preserved due to the construction of a 12
kilometer long dike across the narrow channel that connects the North Lake to
his neighbor to the south. The return of the north Aral Sea has in turn fueled the
revival of the fishing industry in the local towns. Across the border in
Uzbekistan the story is very different. The country's greater reliance on cotton
has effectively stalled the lake restoration projects. Water does remain
in the West Aral Sea which has some replenishment from groundwater but as of
2015 the eastern basin of the south Aral Sea has completely dried up
Unfortunately the future of the Aral Sea is highly dependent on political support
which is currently lacking. Now that the cotton industry has been so well
established in the region the socio-economic pressure to preserve it
is simply too great to overcome. There is a saying in Central Asia "where there is
no water there is no life". This is sadly becoming the reality for
millions people in the region. What was once the fourth largest lake in the
world is now a true living nightmare where miles of toxic desert surround an
island that hosts the deadliest diseases known to man. The Aral Sea crisis has not only
led to a wide scale environmental degradation it has become a human crisis