Human desires can do anything next to impossible. To grow some cotton, a country can sacrifice a sea. Yes, I am talking about the Aral Sea still located between the southern and northern borders of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan respectively. The Aral Sea was once the 4th largest lakes in the world with an area of around 68,000 Sq.Kms. It is a salt water lake like the Dead Sea and was once one of the main producers of fish in the Soviet Union.
The Aral Sea was fed by two rivers namely Amu Darya (Darya is river in Urdu) in the South of the Aral and the Syr Darya in the North East. In the year 1918, the Soviet Government decided to divert the water flowing from these two rivers to canals for the purpose of irrigation of cotton fields in the region mainly in Uzbekistan. The plan was to make the desert fertile for the plantation of rice, cotton and cereals. Cotton did become a major export eventually but at a very high natural cost. Around 1940, the construction of canals started rapidly. This was so badly planned that most of the water got wasted and the Aral Sea too stopped getting water supply.
The big salt water lake did not show signs of depletion until the 1960s when the change could be noticed with the eye. From the 1960 to 1970, the water level of the Aral Sea fell by around 20 cms per year on an average. This shrinking further increased to nearly 60 cms annually during the decade of 1970 and 1980. After 1980, the shrinking was around 100 cm per year. However, the cotton production in the region doubled by this time and the irrigation water supply from the rivers also doubled. This caused the Aral Sea to shrink at an unbelievably high rate. The Soviet Government did not do much homework it seems before the planning of the canals. They probably never bothered about the consequences of the shrinking sea. The salinity of the sea increased to more than 100 gms per liter thus causing the flora and fauna to eventually go extinct. The normal salinity of sea water is at around 35gm/ltr.
As far as the shrinking of the Aral Sea is concerned, it shrank to around 25% of its original size until a couple of years ago. The once “Island Lake”, the Aral Sea which held around 1500 beautiful small islands has now itself got divided into two ponds. The North Aral which is smaller and falls under the Kazakhstan border and the South Aral which is bigger, falls inside the Uzbekistan. With the split of the Soviet Union in 1992, the maintenance of the shrinking Aral Sea largely fell into the hands of Kazakhstan and the Uzbekistan Governments. The Soviets knew that the sea would shrink long before the canals were made but they did not bother and brushed the issue aside by saying that this was the fate of the Aral Sea. More than half a million people have been rendered unemployed because there is no more scope of once flourishing fishing industry. The natural fauna and flora has vanished and it is not far that the South Aral would disappear. The coastal towns of the Old Aral have long become ghost towns and the boats remain wrecked and lay peaceful on the dried up docks.
Saving the AralWhy only the South Aral would disappear? The Kazakhstan government in an effort to revive the Aral has built a dam on between the South and the North Aral Sea in the year 2005. The Dike Kokaral Dam has helped the North Aral Sea to show signs of improvement.
The water level has risen dramatically in the past couple of years by around 30 meters and the habitat has started returning to the North Aral. Salinity has decreased drastically and this has helped in the revival of the sea vegetation. The percentage rise in the water level was more than expected and this is a good sign. The irrigation technology has been improved on the Syr Darya which is enabling more water to flow into the North Aral without hampering the irrigation water supply. The rise of water level in the North Aral has also changed the climate where summers have again become less hot and the winters, less cold in the surrounding areas.Some water is now being released into the South Aral as well to gradually revive it but it might take a century to get back the original Aral Sea. The irony is that Uzbekistan is not as rich a country as Kazakhstan but the bigger part of the Aral lays in the Uzbek territory. Plus the idea of reviving the Aral further got a jolt when the Uzbek Government decided to explore the dried Aral Sea bed for oil.
Some discussions are taking place to restore the South Aral Sea as well. These discussions include the identification of possibilities of diverting water from the Volga, Ob and the Irtysh rivers. Another possibility is to pump water from the Caspian Sea into the Aral Sea through pipelines. Some possibilities are to improve the method of cotton plantation so that it consumes lesser water from the two rivers. These processes would cost around US$50bn and would take around 30 years to restore the Aral to its original state.
If these restoration procedures are successful, we could at least boast of one good deed to God and humanity.
Linus Orakles
http://www.authorclub.info/
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