The Aral Sea Disaster

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 Kerry Elliott                                        gcse coursework                                           page 1

Kerry Elliott                                        gcse coursework                                           page 2

The picture below shows where the Aral Sea is located:

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The Aral Sea is located on the board between south Kazakhstan and north Uzbekistan. The Aral Sea is in central Asia, 500 km to the east of the Caspian Sea. It uses to be the fourth largest lake in the world and in its natural state covered an area off 66,458 sq.km, three times the size of Switzerland. The nearest major city is Tashkent, which has a population of 2,077,000. The Aral Sea has a desert continental climate it has hot summers with average July temperature above 23c and cold winters with an average temperature below -5c. The water in the Aral Sea freezes during the winter. Precipitation is about 100 mm per year. The Aral Sea is in the centre of a large, flat desert basin. In the picture to the left shows where the Aral Sea is located.

What happened to the Aral Sea? The Aral Sea region is big cotton farming area. The Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers flow through cotton farmland into the sea. In the 1950s, the Soviet government decided to divert some of the water from these rivers to irrigate the cotton fields. As more water was diverted for agriculture, less and less river water flowed into the sea.

The Soviet Union was in control of the Aral Sea area and they decide that they needed a reliable source of cotton because it had poorly developed synthetics fibre industry. It therefore had to rely on natural fibres for its textiles industry. Cotton was also a valuable export crop. The soviets called cotton white gold and they invested heavily in this part of central Asia to guarantee high yield of the crop. The area around the Aral Sea with its hot summers was good for the cotton fruit and vegetable growing. However, the summers are dry and the crops need a lot of water so they take water from sydar’ya and Amudar’ya Rivers to give water to the cotton about half of one rivers water flow was used to give to the cotton about half of one rivers water flow was used to give to the cotton and 10% being diverted along the Kara kum canal. All the water going to the cotton meant that less was going to the lake.

Kerry Elliott                                        gcse coursework                                           page 3

What were the impacts of the changes on the Aral Sea and on the people’s health?

The Aral Sea has shrunk by more than 60% in over 30 years. From  to  the Aral dropped from fourth to sixth among the world's largest lakes.

Here are some of the results of the shrinking of the Aral Sea:

  • As water has been drained from the rivers for cotton farming, the sea's water has become much saltier.
  • As more water has been taken from the rivers, the sea's water level has decreased by over 60%.
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  • 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 ...

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