The Aral Sea Disaster

Hi today's blog post is about the Aral sea located Kazakhstan - Uzbekistan, ‎ .

The Aral Sea was once the fourth largest lake in the world located in-between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It has been shrinking since the 1960s because most people that live near it farm cotton and they have been draining the Aral Sea to water the crops. The amount of water in the lake has now decreased by 70%!

This is has caused many environmental, health, and employment / economic problems.

Environmental problems:

•Even miles from the Aral Sea, the ground is encrusted with salt.

•The fish / animals living in the lake died.

•The animals living around the lake died.

•Summers are hotter with less rain.

•Any water left behind in the lake will have a very high salt content.

•Strong winds now blow over the lake bed, causing dust storms.

•It now looks like a graveyard of rusting and abandoned boats.

•The growing season for crops is now shorter.

Health Problems:

•Dust and salt particles that would otherwise be in the lake are being breathed in by residents causing lung cancer.

•Drinking water is heavily polluted with salt and cotton fertilisers.

•Most people are consistently sick because they are drinking the water.

•80% of expectant mothers are anaemic (their hearts have to work harder to pump blood and oxygen around their body.)

•Often communities don’t have enough food.

Employment / economic problems:

•Fishermen have no job because there are no fish.

•More doctors needed.

•More farmers needed.

•Factories have had to close down because there is no water for them to use leaving many people out of work.

•Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan get more money for cotton but have to spend it all on doctors.

•Tourists no longer come to swim in the Aral Sea (therefore no hotels can operate)

If nothing is done, then in the end, all the water previously collected will go and they will have nothing.

However, efforts are being made to save the Aral Sea.

Things to help the Aral Sea

By 2005 the World Bank and the government of Kazakhstan had designed and built a permanent eight-mile (13-kilometer) dam intended to raise the North Aral by about 13 feet (four meters), several feet shy of the level needed to refill Aralsk’s harbor, but deep enough to drop salinity and allow native fish to repopulate the sea. The $85 million project also improved irrigation structures upriver from the Aral.

So think next time before you buy and check out our post on fashion here

Thank you for reading our post and hope you enjoyed :)

The Eco Sisters