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THE ARAL: A DYING SEA

       The Aral Sea was once the fourth biggest landlocked sea in the world – 66,100 square kilometers of surface. With abundant fishing resources, the Sea provided a healthy life for thousands of people.           

    The Aral receives its waters from two rivers – the Amu Dar’ya and the Syr Dar’ya. In 1918, the Soviet government decided to divert the two rivers and use their water to irrigate cotton plantations. These diversions dramatically reduced the volume of the Aral.

      As a result, the concentration of salt has doubled and important changes have taken place: fishing industry and other enterprises have ceased: salt concentration in the soil has reduced the area available for agriculture and pastures; unemployment has risen dramatically; quality of drinking water has been declining because of increasing salinity, and bacteriological contamination; the health of the people, animal and plant life have suffered as well.

      In the past few decades, the Aral Sea volume has decreased by 75 percent. This is a drastic change and it is human induced. During natural cycles, changes occur slowly, over hundreds of years.

      The United Nations Environment Program has recently created the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea. Even if all steps are taken, a substantial recovery might be achieved only with 20 years.

(From: https://www.unenvironment.org/)