The current state of the Aral Sea. Aral Sea. Where is the Aral Sea

The Aral Sea is a unique lake (sea) in Central Asia. Aral Sea - Aral... This word, which has come down to us from ancient times, means “island”. The sea and suddenly - an island! Isn't it strange? But let us remember, by the way, that the most precious lands were called “islands” in Rus'.

The Aral Sea - a story of destruction

The biosphere is a very vulnerable shell of the Earth. If certain connections are broken, then just yesterday the fertile spaces turn into desert.

The Aral Sea was fed by the Amudarya and Syr Darya rivers. Now all this is in the past. These great rivers, which are among the 34 largest waterways in the world, do not reach the Aral today.

The destruction of the Aral Sea - a deliberate work of human hands - is placed in second place among global environmental disasters (after the threat of destruction of tropical forests in the Amazon basin). But the consequences of the disappearance of the sea for the vast Central Asian region, and not only for it, can hardly be called anything other than an incomparable catastrophe. First of all, because the question is raised about the very existence of the people inhabiting this region.

Water inflow into the Aral Sea, before the 1960s. balanced by evaporation (about 65 km3/year), recently ranged from zero to 20 km3/year. The main reason is the increase in water consumption for irrigation, for new, imperfect irrigation systems and reservoirs that dismantle and evaporate water on the way to the sea. As a result, the level of the Aral Sea has now dropped compared to the level in 1957. (then the absolute elevation was 54m) by more than 14m.

Its area decreased from 66.5 thousand km2 to approximately 36 thousand km2, the volume of water from 1000 km3 to almost 320 km3. During this time, the water salinity increased from 8-14 g/l to 25-50 g/l. The sandbank dividing the Aral into the Small (Northern) and Large Aral has completely emerged from the water. The Syr Darya has changed its course and now flows not into the Big Aral, as before, but further north, into the Small Aral. The meridional ridge dividing the Great Aral into eastern and western parts has become largely exposed. The drained former seabed is a desert. Freshwater fish, the production of which previously amounted to more than 40 thousand tons per year, has practically disappeared. Due to the high salinity, animals cannot drink the water.

The area of the exposed bottom is approximately 3 million hectares. And these lifeless spaces covered with salty sand are expanding. Salty dust storms have become common in the Aral Sea region. Every year, according to the space monitoring laboratory, about 72 million tons of salt are carried abroad by the wind. It carries this caustic dust in a southern direction up to 500 km, in an eastern direction to the Yangieg region of Uzbekistan, which is near Tashkent, and it settles in the Tien Shan and in the Pamirs, where the Amu Darya and Syr Darya originate. But their water is consumed by millions of people living in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Aral Sea - forecasts for the future

Based on the above facts, it is not difficult to imagine what will happen in the future. Indeed, today the total amount of salts falling on the soil surface in the Aral Sea region per year has reached an average of 520 kg per hectare. This was one of the reasons for the degradation of the soil here, and in Karakalpakstan, Kzyl-Orda and Tashauz regions, the most difficult situation has developed for people’s health.

Scientists foresters, having examined the exposed bottom of the Aral Sea, came to the conclusion that it is possible to grow a forest on light soils and carry out extensive phytomelioration. Experience in sand consolidation has been accumulated at the Institute of Deserts of the Academy of Sciences of Turkmenistan. The fundamental possibility of its forest reclamation development by sowing and planting desert species of trees - saxaul, kandym, cherkez - has been established. The first landings have been made. Now birds and reptiles settle in these green islands, a new ecosystem has emerged with its own biogeocenosis.

Recommendations for forest reclamation development of the southern part of the drained Aral Seabed have also been published. A project has been developed for consolidating shifting sands and planting seedlings of desert plant species on 326 hectares of the former bottom of Rybatsky Bay. We also started studying technologies for creating protective plantings. After four years, up to a thousand plants have taken root on one hectare of land, and even more in some areas.

The bushes had already reached a height of two meters, had developed dense crowns, were blooming and bearing fruit. This means that self-seeding of forest species will soon begin and their number will reach 3 thousand per hectare. This process is observed on the dried bottom of the former Muynak and Fisherman's bays.

A new generation of desert plants will completely consolidate the top layer of soil in a given area and protect it from being carried away by the wind. It should be noted that after 2-3 years the created crops formed a significant reserve of green mass of 4-5 quintals per 1 ha.

At the age of five, this reserve has already reached more than 7-10 quintals per hectare. Without human help, such self-overgrowth would take many years.

Shifting sands do not wait. The desert, if not stopped in time, quickly begins to increase its boundaries. The creation of protective forest plantations is the only way to block the path of sand and dust storms.

Academician A. S. Berg, in his book “The Aral Sea,” written at the beginning of the century, warned that if the reservoir dries out, a layer of salt will form at its bottom. The winds here are strong, the salt will rise and settle many hundreds of kilometers from the Aral Sea, including on the glaciers of the Pamirs, where the rivers that feed the sea begin. A disaster will begin. And so it happened.

How to save the Aral Sea

Currently, the water level in the Aral Sea can stabilize only if the inflow into the sea increases to 30-35 km3 per year, i.e., to the level of evaporation from the new sea area.

Changing the size of the Aral Sea. Some scientists propose returning drainage water that flows from fields after irrigation or soil washing to the Aral Sea. Their flow can reach a total of 10 km3. Canals-collectors, laid to the right and left of the Amu Darya bed, will carry from its middle course these water flows, withdrawn from reservoirs like Lake Syrkamysh, which was born due to drainage waters.

It is quite easy to imagine that in the very near future Aral water will be difficult to distinguish by composition from the water of Sarykamysh. The concentration of salts in Sarykamysh is 2.5 times higher than in the Aral Sea, and the water there is much more toxic. 5 km3 of waste water to recharge the Aral Sea must travel almost a thousand kilometers through each of the collectors. How much water will reach the sea?

How much of it will be absorbed by natural filtration into the soil? The Karakum Canal, the largest in Central Asia, loses to filtration, according to various estimates, from 18 to 47% of the transportable volume of water. This is what caused the formation of salt marshes in the desert and the flooding of the soil in the Ashgabat region.

If this project is implemented, the Aral Sea will never receive this even untreated water; it will spread across the desert and turn into a “poisonous evaporator.”

According to the most conservative estimates of experts, taking into account the true efficiency of the systems, from 35 to 40 km3 of water is lost annually to filtration and evaporation in the irrigation areas of the Syrdarya and Amu Darya basins, which is almost half of the total river flow. According to various estimates, from 5 to 10 km3 of collector-drainage water flows into various depressions and depressions in the middle of the desert, and 5 km3 evaporates from the surface of man-made reservoirs.

These reservoirs have already flooded hundreds of thousands of fertile hectares, the lack of which is so saddened by other instigators of the recent massive attack on the desert. Let us take the lower limits of the given estimates. It turns out that at least 45 km3 of water goes anywhere but to the Aral Sea.

Watch a video about the Aral Sea:

The Aral Sea will be saved:

- (Aral; in Kazakh sounds: Aral tenizi, in Uzbek: Orol dengizi, Orol dengizi, in Karakalpak language: Aral ten "izi, Aral tenizi) one of the largest salt lakes in the world in the 60-70s. The Aral Sea is drainless salty sea.
Located in Central Asia on the border of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Since the 1960s, the sea level, as well as the volume of water in it, began to decline sharply due to the fact that local residents and agricultural enterprises in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan systematically, starting from the 70s, increased the number of livestock, as a result of which agricultural land, which in turn, requires a large amount of water for irrigation. A sharp increase in pumped water from the main feeding aquifers of the Aral Sea, namely from the Amu Darya and Syrdarya rivers
led to this disaster. Reservoirs have a limit beyond which they cannot recover naturally. Also, in parallel with this problem, there was increased fishing, which could have an impact as a contributing factor.
In 1989, the Aral Sea was divided into two isolated bodies of water:
- Northern Small Aral Sea
- Southern Great Aral Sea

Aral Sea before and after photos. Dynamics of sea drying since the 60s: (look carefully at the picture and you will see the changes)
Aral Sea satellite photos in dynamics (August 2000 - August 2014)

Before the start of shallowing, the Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake in the world.
“In June 2013, at a meeting of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Deputy Director of the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Petr Zavyalov, said that the drying processes of the Aral Sea have slowed down. “Analysis... shows that the sea has now come close to equilibrium, since its surface has decreased so much that evaporation has also decreased, that even not very significant residual river flows, as well as underground flow, allow the sea to balance.”, - said Zavyalov. Despite the extremely high salinity of the water, the Aral Sea has formed its own ecosystem. “The Aral ecosystem is very specific, but alive”, - said Zavyalov. During the expeditions of the Institute of Oceanology, 40 species of phytoplankton were discovered, a large mass of zooplankton, represented mainly by a single species - the crustacean Artemia parthenogenetica."

Since it seemed to the Uzbek side that it was not enough that the sea was disappearing, they decided in 2008 to start searching for oil fields in their part of the Aral Sea, apparently they were greatly encouraged by Zavyalov’s words.
There is another dangerous point associated with this environmental disaster: sea salts remain at the bottom of the dried-up Aral Sea, which are carried by the wind to residential settlements and cities, thereby negatively affecting the human body.

As we know from the above, the main reason for the shallowing of the Aral Sea is intensive irrigation of cotton and rice fields, while the increased salinity of the sea also plays a significant role.
We are now talking about the facts that are happening now, but what happened under the USSR?
And under the USSR, the situation just began; the deteriorating state of the Aral Sea was simply not disclosed to the public, the first who emphasized the environmental disaster was Gorbachev M.S., who threw this issue into the furnace of glasnost in order to show how the USSR was changing in the conditions of the future changes and that now it is no longer the USSR, but a new society where everyone can hear the voice of the people; of course, this was heard only because Gorbachev craved PR and of course he got it. Since 1985, after publicity, scientists have closely taken up this issue. Where by 1988 the water level in the Aral dropped to previously unheard of levels, that the Aral Sea was divided into two parts: the northern Small Aral and the southern Great Aral.
And already in 2006, a division was observed between the western and eastern reservoirs of the Aral Sea, with the western one having the largest amount of water due to the basins located there, the eastern part was essentially shallow water. At the same time, the volume of water decreased almost 10 times, and the salinity increased up to 15 times (100 g/l).
When the USSR collapsed, let us remember this happened in 1991, a watershed passed through the Aral Sea and it simultaneously became the possessions of the 2 newly formed states of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Then the situation continued to worsen because... The struggle for the water resources of the Aral began.

The drying up of the Aral Sea led to the disappearance of spring floods, which supplied the floodplains of the lower reaches of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya with fresh water and fertile sediments.
The inhabitants of the Aral Sea have also decreased, which is natural from 45 species and subspecies to 5 species of fish, as a rule, this is the consequences of a decrease in water level and an increase in salt concentration, the disappearance of spawning grounds and feeding areas.
Here are some figures on fish catching in the Aral Sea:
- 1960 - 40 thousand tons
- 1970 - 25 thousand tons
- 1980 - 10 thousand tons
- 1990 - industrial fishing did not function.
The most important fish resource of the Aral Sea was the local Black Sea flounder, brought into the sea back in 1972; now, like many other species, it no longer lives in the Aral Sea.
Shipping, as well as fishing in the Aral Sea, ceased because... the main ports of the Aral Sea cities simply became shallow: Muynak in the south and Aral in the north.
Moreover, this became a financially unprofitable business, the ports were closed, and the ships of the Aral Sea were rusting throughout the territory of the once deep sea.
Vegetation has practically disappeared around the Aral Sea due to increased salt concentration and lack of water. The local fauna has also decreased by half, the climate has changed - summers have become hotter, winters have become colder. The range of temperatures has expanded and sharp temperature changes have become more frequent, the growing season has decreased, droughts have become more frequent, the level of air humidity has decreased, and therefore the amount of precipitation has decreased.
Drainage water for irrigating fields, returning to the beds of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers, was filled with huge amounts of pesticides; many scientists consider pesticides to be the cause of the environmental disaster.
Now dust storms carry salts and pesticides, toxic chemicals, which somehow get into people’s lungs, slow down the development of local vegetation, which, of course, is the cause of illness for local residents.

A little history of the Aral Sea
according to archaeologists:
- 21 million years ago the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea were one.
- until 1573, the Amu Darya flowed along the Uzboy branch into the Caspian Sea, and the Turgai River into the Aral.
- 1800 years ago - the Zarafshan and Amu Darya rivers flow into the Caspian Sea.
- The 16th - 17th century marks the islands of Barsakelmes, Kaskakulan, Kozzhetpes, Uyaly, Biyiktau, Vozrozhdeniya, which indicates another decrease in sea level.
- The Zhanadarya rivers have stopped flowing into the Aral Sea since 1819, and the Kuandarya rivers since 1823.
- Then, until the mid-1960s, the level of the Aral Sea was practically unchanged.
- in the 1950s, the Aral Sea was the 4th largest in the world (the area was 68 thousand km2)
- in 1930, the construction of irrigation canals began in Central Asia, and reached its climax in the 60s of the last century, after which the sea gradually began to become shallow.

You can see how systematically the Soviet leadership increased the area of irrigated land in Central Asia, they increased from 4.8 million to 7 million hectares,
The demand for water resources in the region increased from 60 to 120 cubic meters of water per year, of which 85% was spent only on irrigation of lands, mainly used for growing feed for agricultural animals.
In fact, the main cause of the environmental disaster of the Aral Sea was, of course, irresponsible human activity; water costs for the meat industry are not comparable to the resources that a person would spend if he grew and used land for his own food, i.e. growing the same grain, beets, corn, potatoes and many other agricultural crops for use as food directly by humans, bypassing animals. It has long been calculated and proven that raising agricultural animals as food leads to greater environmental consequences for Planet Earth than if a person consumed it himself. Only water use is reduced by about a factor. It is clear that humanity will not make such radical conclusions and will deny itself the pleasure of eating meat. Of course, it was not only agricultural animals that caused the disappearance of the Aral Sea and plant crops that were not intended for animal food, this is, of course, cotton - the main income for the budget of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, which also consumes the waters of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya for irrigating cotton. Also, a huge problem and the cause of the death of the Aral Sea were pesticides, which still fly across the nearby territories of the Aral Sea and get into the lungs of the people living there.

Restoring the Aral Sea is, of course, the work of man, just as man had a hand in its destruction, so his task now is to restore it, scientists argue about whether it can be restored or not. And as usually happens, some say that all this is real, others say that it is impossible, especially since the above countries cannot refuse cotton. And the beginning in the restoration of the Aral Sea, of course, will be reducing the consumption of water resources of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, which in this economic situation is an insoluble task.
Many media outlets report that, following the Aral Sea, Lake Chad in Central Africa and Lake Salton Sea in the US state of California are approaching environmental disaster. Again, the main reason is over-abstraction of water and activities of farmers.

Latest data on the Aral Sea at the end of 2015:
"The water level in the Aral Sea has risen from 38 to 42 meters
Water mineralization decreased 23 decreased to 13 g/liter.
The distance to the main port of Aralsk has been reduced from 90 kilometers to 17 km, which is good news; the northern part of the Aral Sea is gradually arriving.
The amount of fish produced has doubled, and the number of fish processing plants has increased from 3 to 8. Fishermen return from Balkhash to the Aral Sea, 22 species of fish have been restored".
- Akim of the Kyzylorda region of the Republic of Kazakhstan Krymbek Kusherbaev said

It is interesting that after the bottom of the Aral Sea opened up to the gaze of mankind, archaeologists began to excavate at its bottom and found... And they found the Mausoleum of Kerderi (dating back to the 11th-14th century AD) and the settlement of Aral-Asar (dating back to the 14th century from R.H.)

Singer Yulia Savicheva and the T-9 group filmed a video for the song “Ships” on the dried-up Aral Sea

Linkin Park's "What I've Done" also featured ships from the Aral Sea.

Photos of the Aral Sea

Huge bodies of water are drying up, leaving only miles-long deserts in their place. Life figured out why this was happening and where to urgently need to go to possibly be one of the last witnesses.

Late last year, Google updated its Timelapse service. With this tool you can see how our planet has changed over the past 32 years. The most impressive changes were edited into separate videos and posted on the YouTube channel Earth Outreach, there you can find a video about the drying up of the Aral and Dead Seas, as well as the Bolivian Lake Poopo. We figured out what happened to these reservoirs.

From the Aral Sea to the Aralkum Desert

Back in 1960, the Aral Sea ranked fourth among the largest inland bodies of water on our planet, stretching over 67 thousand square kilometers. And now the Aral is turning into a desert called Aralkum.

In fact, the Aral Sea is not a sea at all, it is very much a lake, just salty and very large. It was located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and was fed by water from two rivers: the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, while water left the Aral itself only through evaporation. That is, the natural balance has been maintained for thousands of years: rivers provide water to the lake, part of which then evaporates from its surface - it would seem that trouble is nowhere to be expected.

After the 1920s, when Uzbekistan joined the Soviet Union, it was decided to build several thousand kilometers of irrigation canals, which throughout the following decades supplied cotton fields with moisture in arid Central Asia. Where did the water come from in the irrigation canals? Of course, from the very rivers that fed the Aral Sea.

At first, the reservoirs coped well and no one noticed any significant shallowing or drying out. But in the 60s, they decided to put additional canals into operation, which became disastrous for the salt lake. The water level in the Aral Sea began to fall rapidly, and by 1987 the reservoir became so shallow that it split into two separate lakes, which were named the Southern (Big) and Northern (Small) Aral Seas. IN In the Great Aral, absolutely all the fish died due to high salinity.

They decided to restore a small part of the once huge lake by isolating the Syr Darya River and directing its resources exclusively to feeding the Northern and not so salty Aral, thereby predetermining the fate of the southern part.

Despite the lost sea, tourists continue to travel to the Aral Sea, which fascinates with its post-apocalyptic landscapes. The popularity of jeep tours in the desert is growing, because in those places where there were busy ports not long ago, there are now ship graveyards that look more like the scenery for a disaster movie, and the preserved part of the sea looks more like a mirage.

What is dead cannot die

In fact, the Dead Sea also turns out to be not a sea at all, but a salty, endorheic lake. It is located between Israel and Jordan, and the water level drops by an average of one meter per year. In perspective since 1984, it looks something like this.

The Dead Sea is one of the most popular tourist attractions. Many people know about the healing properties of the water in this lake and almost the entire surrounding area: freshwater springs, healing black clay, safe solar radiation. Even the air near the lake is special; people with respiratory diseases are strongly recommended to visit this unique place. So what is happening to one of the most popular bodies of water on the planet?

The level of the Dead Sea often changed depending on the climate; this is an absolutely normal natural situation. But due to the active development of the Dead Sea's resources, the water level in the lake has dropped by 25 meters over the past century alone. The fact is that since 1977, when, due to drainage, the sea was divided into the Northern and Southern parts, the latter came under the control of mineralogical plants extracting bromine, potassium chloride and other minerals. The southern part was divided into a system of pools, disrupting the natural circulation within the reservoir. Subsequently, the groundwater level decreased, so cavities began to form in the soil, which over time turn into sinkholes (sinkholes). It’s easy to guess that the ground, sinking under your feet, does not have the most favorable effect on the people who walk on it and on the buildings that stand on it.

The main water supply of the Dead Sea is the once mighty Jordan River. Now there are dams in its path, which significantly reduce the amount of water that subsequently enters the Dead Sea. All these factors contribute to the alarming desiccation of the lake.

Today there are plans to supply water from the Red Sea, but the water will first need to be desalinated so as not to disturb the lake's unique chemistry and then piped to its destination.

It is unknown how many more generations of people will be able to freely enjoy the healing properties of these places. You and I have the opportunity to visit one of the most mysterious lakes on our planet. It's worth doing this while the Dead Sea still exists.

He left but promised to return

Bolivia's second largest lake completely ceased to exist in February last year. Lake Poopo, which covered an average area of 1,300 square kilometers, is disappearing for the second time, having dried up for the first time in 1994.

Guess what it tasted like? That's right, salty. And by tradition, drainless. Poopo has been evaporating since 2014; as you can see, it didn’t take very long for it to evaporate, since despite its vast area, the depth of the lake was only three meters. The disappeared body of water was second in size only to Lake Titicaca, the largest in Bolivia.

For tourists visiting Bolivia, this place was one of the must-sees. Why not visit a huge salt lake? Moreover, it is adjacent to the largest body of water in Bolivia - Lake Titicaca. But now all that is left for tourists to contemplate is a multi-kilometer wasteland.

Among the reasons for the drying out, a fluctuation in the temperature of the surface layer of water in one part of the Pacific Ocean, which is affectionately called El Niño (“baby boy”), is noted. El Niño has a noticeable effect on the climate, and therefore on the drying out of water bodies. Also in the area of the lake, mining and agriculture are actively developing, which increases the load on the sources feeding Poopo, which scientists call perhaps the most important reason for the possible temporary disappearance of the lake.

Huge lakes are disappearing literally before our eyes. Amid talk of global warming and melting glaciers, dry lakes seem somewhat surreal, but they are a harsh reality.

We can still look at the preserved part of the Aral Sea and experience the healing properties of the Dead Sea, but we may never see the Bolivian Lake Poopo again.

The Aral Sea is one of the largest endorheic bodies of salt water. It is located in Central Asia and serves as the border between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Its name comes from the local dialect - translated it means “sea of islands”. The Aral Sea has now become significantly smaller, and these changes could lead to an environmental disaster.

General information

The Aral Sea in the past was a large salty body of water that was formed in prehistoric times. The main sources of water inflow remain the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, while the lake is drainless. Since the middle of the last century, a change in the course of these rivers, a decrease in their area and filling, has been recorded, and therefore the depth of the sea has also decreased.

The climate in this area is sharply continental, dry, desert. In the 1960s, the sea was one of the four deepest closed reservoirs, its depth was 68 meters. Today the level of the Aral Sea is 42 meters.

Today the lake has shrunk considerably. Its borders have shifted more than 100 km from the original line. In connection with this, the reservoir was divided into the Large and Small Aral Seas (South and North, respectively), between which the Kokaral dam was built. Its main function is to regulate the water level in the Small Sea.

Changes in the landscape of the Aral Sea and their causes

In the middle of the last century, the channels of the Central Asian rivers Amu Darya and Syr Darya were artificially changed. The purpose of this operation was to irrigate fields in the steppe regions to increase their fertility. As a result, the influx of water into the Aral Sea decreased critically, which led to its rapid drying out.

The reservoir was divided into 2 parts, which represent the Large and Small Aral Sea. A significant part of its bottom rose to the surface. The Big (Southern Aral) unites two objects - the Eastern and Northern lakes.

Ecological situation

Any large body of water, including the Aral Sea, is an independent ecological system. The water level determines its chemical composition, as well as the possibility of the existence of flora and fauna. A violent change in natural processes led to a chain of events that at this stage are regarded as an environmental disaster:

mineralization of water, that is, an increase in the amount of salt and other trace elements in it;
the extinction of most species of fish and marine life that could not exist in the new conditions;
exposure of huge areas of bottom sediments, which began to spread over large areas in the form of dust and salt storms;
atmospheric pollution with chemicals from the bottom of the lake, which provoked the greenhouse effect and climate warming.

The Aral Sea has lost half of its water mass. However, there are ways to solve the environmental problem. In the early 2000s, the powerful Kokaral dam was built. It operates successfully, and the waters of the Syr Darya accumulate in the Small Aral Sea. The water level is gradually increasing, and some commercial fish species have already been restored.

Shipping on the Aral Sea

Before the environmental situation in the Aral began to change, the sea was suitable for navigation. Navy vessels, steamships and sailing ships cruised here, and underwater research work was carried out. Also in this territory there were services for catching fish, which were found here in abundance.

Large ports were located on the shores of the Aral Sea:

Aralsk- the main organization equipped for fishing activities.
Muynak- a former port located on the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan.
Kazakhdarya- another large-scale port of Uzbekistan.

At the moment the sea is unsuitable for navigation. Large ports were cut off from the coastline by 100-150 km and stopped their activities. Aralsk continues to function and is working on the problem of restoring the fish population in the Lesser Urals. The program made it possible to engage in artificial breeding of some species, including flounder, catfish, pike perch and others.

New islands

The landscape of the Aral Sea is heterogeneous. The seabed has always been located at different depths, and some areas rose above the surface of the water, forming islands of different sizes. In the process of shredding the reservoir, they gradually turned into peninsulas, and then into tracts, since they are no longer washed on all sides.

The largest islands of the Aral Sea include:

Barsakelmes Island- at the moment it is a tract on the territory of Kazakhstan.
Renaissance Island- now a peninsula in the southwestern part of the Aral Sea, divided between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Kokaral- in the past the island, today a semi-desert tract in the northern part of the Aral Sea, belongs to the Republic of Kazakhstan.

All former islands of the Aral Sea are connected to the mainland. There is a biological waste disposal site on Vozrozhdeniya Island, and a nature reserve is located on Barsakelmes. A dam was built near the island of Kokaral to restore the ecosystem of the Small Aral Sea.

Aral Lake on the map

The environmental problem of the Aral region is especially noticeable if you compare satellite map data before and after it dried out. Most of the sea area is bare and desert. The islands are not washed on all sides and are connected to the mainland. This area is unsuitable for life, since a significant part of the bottom sediments is concentrated here. The danger is that today's measures cannot completely restore the natural balance in the Aral ecosystem and fill the reservoir basin.

The Aral Lake problem is an environmental disaster caused by human factors. In addition to changing the natural course of rivers, the reduction of water levels was influenced by the greenhouse effect and other dangerous processes. Competent work aimed at restoring the Aral ecosystem can solve the problem of its drying out, but at this stage it is not effective enough.

One of the border objects separating Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan is the endorheic salty Aral Sea. In its heyday, this lake-sea was considered the fourth largest in the world in terms of the volume of water it contained; its depth reached 68 meters.

In the 20th century, when the Republic of Uzbekistan was part of the Soviet Union, the waters and bottom of the sea were explored by specialists. As a result of radiocarbon analysis, it was established that this reservoir was formed in the prehistoric era, approximately 20-24 thousand years ago.

At that time, the landscape of the earth's surface was constantly changing. Full-flowing rivers changed their courses, islands and entire continents appeared and disappeared. The main role in the formation of this water body was played by the rivers that at different times filled the sea called the Aral Sea.

In primitive times, the stone basin containing a large lake was filled with the waters of the Syr Darya. Then it really was no more than an ordinary lake. But after one of the shifts of tectonic plates, the Amu Darya River changed its original course, ceasing to feed the Caspian Sea.

Great waters and periods of drought in the history of the sea

Thanks to the powerful support of this river, the large lake replenished its water balance, becoming a real sea. Its level rose to 53 meters. Significant changes in the water landscape of the area and increased depth became the causes of climate humidification.

Through the Sarakamyshen depression it connects with the Caspian Sea, and its level rises to 60 meters. These favorable changes occurred in the 4th-8th millennium BC. At the turn of the 3rd millennium BC, aridization processes took place in the Aral Sea region.

The bottom again became closer to the water surface, and the waters dropped to 27 meters above sea level. The depression connecting two seas – the Caspian and Aral – is drying up.

The level of the Aral Sea fluctuates between 27-55 meters, alternating periods of revival and decline. The great medieval regression (drying out) came 400-800 years ago, when the bottom was hidden under 31 meters of water

Chronicle history of the sea

The first documentary evidence confirming the existence of a large salt lake can be found in Arab chronicles. These chronicles were kept by the great Khorezm scientist Al-Biruni. He wrote that the Khorezmians already knew about the existence of a deep sea from 1292 BC.

V.V. Bartholdi mentions that during the conquest of Khorezm (712-800), the city stood on the eastern coast of the Aral Sea, of which detailed evidence has been preserved. The ancient writings of the holy book Avesta have brought to this day a description of the Vaksh River (present-day Amu Darya), which flows into Lake Varakhskoye.

In the mid-19th century, a geological expedition of scientists (V. Obruchev, P. Lessor, A. Konshin) carried out work in the coastal region. Shore deposits discovered by geologists gave the right to assert that the sea occupied the area of the Sarakamyshin depression and the Khiva oasis. And during the migration of rivers and drying out, the mineralization of water sharply increased and salts fell to the bottom.

Facts of the recent history of the sea

The presented documentary evidence is collected in the book “Essays on the history of research of the Aral Sea”, written by a member of the Russian Geographical Society L. Berg. It is interesting to note that, according to L. Berg, neither ancient Greek nor ancient Roman historical or archaeological works contain any information about such an object.

During periods of regression, when the seabed was partially exposed, islands became isolated. In 1963, along one of the islands, Revival Island, a border was drawn between the territories occupied by present-day Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan: 78.97% of Revival Island is occupied by Uzbekistan, and 21.03% by Kazakhstan.

In 2008, Uzbekistan began geological exploration work on Vozrozhdenie Island in order to discover oil and gas layers. Thus, Renaissance Island may turn out to be a “stumbling block” in the economic policies of the two countries.

It is planned to complete the bulk of geological exploration work in 2016. And already at the end of 2016, the LUKOIL corporation and Uzbekistan will drill two appraisal wells on Vozrozhdenie Island, taking into account seismic data.

Ecological situation in the Aral Sea region

What is the Small and Large Aral Sea? The answer can be obtained by studying the drying up of the Aral Sea. At the end of the 20th century, this reservoir experienced another regression - drying out. It splits into two independent objects - the Southern Aral and the Small Aral Sea.

Why did the Aral Sea disappear?

The water surface decreased to ¼ of its original value, and the maximum depth approached 31 meters, which was evidence of a significant (up to 10% of the initial volume) reduction in water in the already disintegrated sea.

Fishing, which once flourished on the lake-sea, left the southern reservoir - the large Aral Sea - due to the strong mineralization of the water. The Small Aral Sea has retained some fishing enterprises, but fish stocks there have also decreased significantly. The reasons why the sea bottom was exposed and individual islands appeared were:

Natural alternation of periods of regression (drying out); during one of them, in the middle of the 1st millennium, there was a “city of the dead” at the bottom of the Aral Sea, as evidenced by the fact that there is a mausoleum here, next to which several burials were discovered.
Drainage-collector waters and domestic wastewater from surrounding fields and vegetable gardens, containing pesticides and toxic chemicals, enter rivers and settle to the bottom of the sea.
The Central Asian rivers Amudarya and Syrdarya, partially flowing through the territory of the state of Uzbekistan, have reduced the recharge of the Aral Sea by 12 times due to the diversion of their waters for irrigation needs.
Global climate change: the greenhouse effect, the destruction and melting of mountain glaciers, and this is where Central Asian rivers originate.

The climate in the Aral Sea region has become harsher: cooling begins already in August, the summer air has become very dry and hot. Steppe winds blowing across the bottom of the sea carry toxic chemicals and pesticides across the entire Eurasian continent.

Aral is navigable

Back in the XYIII-XIX centuries, the depth of the sea was passable for a military flotilla, which included steamships and sailing ships. And scientific and research vessels penetrated the secrets that were hidden by the depths of the sea. In the last century, the depths of the Aral Sea abounded in fish and were suitable for navigation.

Until the next period of drying out at the end of the 70s of the 20th century, when the sea bottom began to sharply approach the surface, ports were located on the seashores:

Aralsk is the former center of the fishing industry on the Aral Sea; now here is the administrative center of one of the districts of the Kyzylorda region of Kazakhstan. It was here that the start was given for the revival of fishing. The dam, built on the outskirts of the city, increased to 45 meters the depth of one of the parts into which the Small Aral Sea broke up, which has already made it possible to engage in fish farming. By 2016, fishing for flounder and freshwater fish has been established here: pike perch, catfish, Aral barbel, and asp. More than 15 thousand tons of fish were caught in the Small Aral Sea in 2016.
Muynak - located on the territory of the state of Uzbekistan, the former port and the sea are separated by 100-150 kilometers of steppe, in the place of which there was a seabed.
Kazakhdarya is a former port located on the territory of the state of Uzbekistan.

New land

The exposed bottom became islands. The largest islands stand out:

Vozrozhdeniya Island, the southern part of which is located on the territory of the state of Uzbekistan, and the northern part belongs to Kazakhstan; as of 2016, Vozrozhdeniya Island is a peninsula on which a large amount of biological waste is buried;
Barsakelmes Island; belongs to Kazakhstan, located 180 km from Aralsk; as of 2016, the Barsakalme Nature Reserve is located on this island in the Aral Sea;
Kokaral Island is located in the north of the former Aral Sea on the territory of Kazakhstan; Currently (as of 2016) it is a land isthmus connecting a large sea that has split into two parts.

Currently (as of 2016), all former islands are connected to the mainland.

Location of the Aral Sea on the map

Travelers and tourists visiting Uzbekistan are interested in the question: where is the mysterious Aral Sea, the depth of which in many places is zero? What do the Small and Large Aral Seas look like in 2016?

Caspian and Aral Sea on the map

The problems of the Aral Sea and the dynamics of its drying out are clearly visible on the satellite map. On an ultra-precise map depicting the territory occupied by Uzbekistan, one can trace a trend that could mean the death and disappearance of the sea. And the effects of a changing climate on the entire continent, which could result from the disappearing Aral Sea, will be catastrophic.

The problem of reviving a drying water body has become international. The real way to save the Aral Sea could be a project to divert Siberian rivers. In any case, the World Bank, when 2016 began, allocated $38 million to the countries of the Central Asian region to solve the Aral Sea problem and mitigate the climate consequences in the region caused by disastrous processes in the Aral Sea.