- Drinking water supplies have decreased, and the water is contaminated with pesticides and other agricultural chemicals as well as bacteria and viruses.
- The farms in the area use some highly toxic pesticides and other harmful chemicals. For decades, these chemicals have been deposited into the Aral Sea. When the wind blows across the dried-up sea, it carries dust containing these toxic chemicals.
- Lakes and seas tend to have a moderating effect on the climate. In other words, the land right next to a body of water tends to be warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer than land that's not near the water. As the Aral Sea has lost water, the climate has become more extreme.
Below is a picture of the Aral Sea in 1960 and 2001 and how it has shrunk: I got this picture from
Kerry Elliott gcse coursework page 4
The Aral Sea was shrinking below are pictures of it in stages:
I got these pictures from:
1993
1977
2000
1982
1984
1957
Kerry Elliott gcse coursework page 5
The impact on the people’s health:
Poor water-poor crops-poor food-poor health
The drying-up of the Sea, and the salt and dust laden air, have had a damaging effect on the health of the people, and the animal and plant life as well. The introduction of pesticides into the rice and cotton fields, and the seepage of the residues back into the rivers, has heavily contaminated the water for thus communities living along the banks of the rivers flowing into the Sea.
Hospitalisation rates increased from 20 to 25 per 100 persons between 1980 and 1987. Mortality rates have increased by 15 times in a ten year period, and diseases such as cardiac, vascular, gallstone and tuberculosis has risen significantly especially in children. 83% of babys have a disease. The disaster has been directly linked by medical studies to diseases of blood, cancer, asthma, and heart malfunction. Many children are born with defects resulting from the drying up of the Aral Sea of the spread of toxic dusts and deterioration of the regional climate resulting from the Aral Sea disaster.
The changing profile of the Aral Sea in 1960-2010:
On then next four pages are four line graphs of the changing profile of the Aral Sea in 1960 to 2010:
The first is on level:
In this graph you can see that the level of the water in the Aral sea over the years has been decreasing there is a certain period of time where it only decreased a little every year the gap where this happened was in these years 1995, 1996, 1997 the level only changed by one meter this is because it was taken in years for these three but the rest where taken every 10 years or 5 you can see from the graph that the Aral sea is shrinking.
The second is on area:
This graph shows the area of the Aral sea has been changing but a one point there is a bit where it increases and then the next bit goes back down year that happens at 1999 where is increased from 34.8km2 to 35.374km2 and then goes down to 31km2 the plotted points are evenly spread all in a decreasing direction. There is one part where the decree between two years is very small was where it only decreased by 0.945km2 the largest change was 17.6.
The third is on volume:
This graph has a strong decreasing line and as you can see in the graph there was a period of time where the volume was close hat was at about year 1996, 1997, and 1998 where there is only a year between and the others have 10 years between them. The years where it deceased the most is 1980 to 1990 where it deceased by 366km3.
The fourth is on salinity: This graph shows the salinity of the Aral Sea it increases a lot most from 1998 to 2010 because it increases by 35g/l.
Kerry Elliott gcse coursework page 10
This table shows the cotton production-source from a data sheet:
Graph showing cotton production is on page 11
The future of the Aral Sea is full of problems. We may assume several scenarios for the development of this water body. The first is that of containing decreasing amount of water running into the sea it is sire that the area and volume of the sea will also decrease. At present we can only make general estimations of trends in there decreasing changes.
On the whole, if the water flow to the sea does not change significantly, a progressive increase in the salinity of the sea water will occur, in which case the sea will no longer be one of the biggest lakes. Finally, we should consider a situation where there is an increasing river flow to the Aral Sea. In that case, the water volume and area would both grow while the salinity gradually fell. The rate of the process would depend upon the amount of river run off.
It can be appreciated that the Aral Sea is now an environmental catastrophe. The water level is declining and the ecosystem is being degraded, declining living conditions and health of the people living around its shores. It should be admitted that the reasons for the crisis are wrong priorities for the economic development of the Aral basin, poor quality of the restoration systems, and an excessive amounts of chemicals used in agriculture.
Kerry Elliott gcse coursework page 12
- They could levy a charge on the cotton growers for using the water
- Use water from under ground reservoirs thought to exist below the desert. This could cost a lot but could work
- Transfer water from Siberian Rivers such as the Obietysh, and yenisy to the Aral sea.
- Melt glaciers in the pamir and tien shan mountains to the south and east of the Aral sea
- Control the quantity and types of chemical used as fertilisers and pesticides
- Improve the efficiency of irrigation. Many of the canals are old and leak a lot and this means the water will be able to evaporate and that way it is wasted.
Kerry Elliott gcse coursework page 13
What would the owner of a large and profitable cotton farm think about how the area has changed from its natural state?
On page 10 there is a graph of the cotton production
What the owner of a large cotton farm thinks about the changes?
Of course it’s a good out come I have a profitable business that in the future has a lot of business every one wants this gold dust.
But it is coursing all these environmentally problems?
Yes I know and I don’t want to lose the Aral Sea and nor do I want to lose my business I have worked so hard on it.
Yes I understand but what can we do if your cotton production is causing problems?
Well I know that we are using the water and could be maybe wasting it and we are trying to reduce to amount of water waste it is hard.
You are also polluting the water that does go in to the Aral with fertilizers and pesticides
Well I am sorry for that I can not really change that because if we do then cotton would not grow well.
So do you have a solution to sort it out?
Well surely there is some where else they can get water from to fill the Aral sea and then the water used for the cotton can keep being used and the water that does get to the Aral to have some thing that take out the fertilizers and pesticides so that the Aral sea does not get polluted and then introduce the fish back into the sea.
The views from an environmentalist of the changes that they have happened to the Aral Sea?
What do you think about the changes are they good ideas or bad ones?
I believe it is a bad idea should never of been left to come to this if something big does not happen then we will lose the Aral sea and the wildlife will lose there homes that is if they haven’t all ready.
What do you think needs to be done?
I think that cotton production needs to be stopped and let the water in the river run back into the sea. Also the problem with the polluted water needs to be unpolluted and then we have to leave the environment to take it place and bring back all the fish and the sea level and area and volume to increase
But wouldn’t this take time?
Yes but if we didn’t get in this situation we would never have to deal with this but I believe that we have to do what ever it takes to get back this ecosystem we lost especially because it was the 4th biggest in the world now its properly one of the first lake to shrink in size so fast.
Kerry Elliott gcse coursework page 14
Who do you think is to blame for causing all theses problems?
I think that it is the cotton production that is causing all the problems and so I believe they are to blame but overall it is the Soviet Union that is to blame of planning all thee changes with out thinking them over and of all the things that could have gone wrong.
The changes were good at the time because it brought in a lot of jobs and a lot of money from the cotton production but it has caused a lot of problem like it not growing because it needs more water because of the heat and also needs fertilizer and pesticides which polluted the water the changes just mean that a lot of problems we created and coursing the 4th largest lake to shrink incredibly. The only thing I think is that some one should have stopped this before it got to this stage so I think that they should do what ever thy have to, to restore this ecosystem back to what it was even if it cost a lot of money and time.
From my solution I think that the two that will be most successful would be the reduce the amount of irrigation of cotton plantations. This would enable more water from two major rivers to reach the Aral Sea. This would work because the water would go back to the lake but I think that they will need another supply of water which is not reservoirs thought to exist below the desert but I have chose this one as well because if there is water there then it would be useful but if there isn’t then we need a back up which would be to improve the cotton plantation.
I believe that all the solutions will work but I think these two are the more likely to do the most change I think that the solution that wont work the most will be the solution where they would have to melt glaciers in the pamir and tien shan mountains to the south east of the Aral sea, because this idea is a stupid idea how could you melt the top of the mountain and also get it to go where you want and no one get hurt from the water.
Resources I used:
- The notes from the video
- Britannia
- Work sheets
- The internet sites I went on :
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