Economics Natural potential and real rate of food and industrial production allowed the Aral region to provide 1/4 of gas extraction, 40% of rice and 90% of cotton in the former USSR. The Aral Sea Basin is rich with natural resources: iron ore, non-ferrous metals, oil and gas, large deposits of coal, copper, lead, tin, tungsten, molybdenum, fluorite, lithium, gold, silver, antimony, and mercury. Nowadays, however, the economy of Central Asia based traditionally on stock-breeding, plant-growing, large scale fishery, is experiencing hard times. The cause of that is drying up of the Aral Sea begun in early 1960s as a result of intensive pioneering of deserts without considering the ecological and sea preservation issues. Water management mistake was made in the region where traditional irrigation had thousands years of experience and where population always knew the price of irrigating water: use little water for land and you will obtain small yield, but the land will be safe; use much water and you will obtain small yield too, but the land will die because surplus water is poison and it results in secondary salinization. Eternal rules of the ancient Babylon King Hammurabi who lived in 1970s BC were forgotten. He said that a neighbor living at upper streams should think about the one living at lower streams and provide the possibilities for his life. One of the main aspects of the Aral crisis is that the water-management catastrophe (the drying up of the Aral Sea) is a result and a consequence of short-sighted management activities in very droughty climate areas. Conversion of Central Asia into a cotton base of the USSR, extensive development of irrigated areas overstepped a critical level of reasonable management activity of man. Negative processes changed the productive potential and landscape of the region. Consequences of the Aral Crisis Once fourth largest lake of our planet - the Aral Sea - has been drying up during four decades. By 1995 the Sea lost 3/4 of its water volume, surface area shrank by half, water level fell by 19 meters. The Sea run off its shores by 100-150 km and exposed more than 33 sq. km. of its seabed, where The process of drying up of the Aral Sea over the period of 1977 - 1995 is fixed on the space photos | 
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| | 1977 | 1984 | 1989 | 1995 |
more than 100 million tons of salty dust are being carried out faraway from the sea line annually. It is consisted of grains in form of aerosol with impurities of agricultural poisonous inputs, fertilizers, and other harmful industrial and household drains. Waters from rivers do not reach the Sea because they gradually disappear in desert sands. Strengthening of impact of desertification, degradation of ecosystem in the Aral region and of the mountain drains, worsening of water-salt balance in the agricultural areas, changing of regional and global climate - all these are the qualitatively new phase that has already been started. The environment of the region sharply worsened due to pollution of atmosphere, drinking water and soil. The process of drying up of the Aral Sea has a negative impact on climate of the Aral region. Earlier, the Aral Sea played a role of some sort of regulator in the region: it softened cold Siberian winds in winters and acted as a conditioner lowering heat in summer months. Worsening of climate in the region is being expressed in dryer and shorter summers, and in longer and colder winters. Vegetative season shortened down to 170 days. On shore territories of the Aral Sea precipitation decreased ten times, humidity of air decreased by 10%, summer temperatures increased and winter temperatures decreased by + 2-3 degrees centigrade. Productivity of pasture-grounds shrank twice. Destruction of vegetation of the lands adjoined to riverbeds decreased the productivity of these lands ten times. Two million ha of fertile lands have been removed from agricultural process. This happened due to excessive watering which led to rise of ground waters and the lands suffered from secondary salinization. Now these lands are constantly boggy or covered with thin crust of salt. In former times arid soils of the Aral region had automorphous regime of feeding and moistening and now they are transformed into meadow-marsh soils with hydromorphous regime. And, in order to support this regime artificially, it is necessary to supply water not at biologically necessary level but two or three times higher which is required to withstand the process of secondary salinization by "fuse" effect (rising of deep ancient resources of salt waters). Bad agricultural cycle has been applied in the region when strongly bogged lands are being abandoned and new lands are being introduced in the production process, then the cycle is repeated. Local collector-drainage waters saturated with poisonous chemicals are being thrown down into numerous landscape lowlands in a form of returnable drains and consequently deteriorating agricultural conditions of irrigated lands of Central Asia (lakes of Sarykamysh, Arnasai, Kattashor, Terrenkara and others). These reservoirs are real disaster for surrounding lands. They cover lands, causing the secondary salinization. After drying up, the poisonous bottom deposits are carried out on to irrigated lands, destroying them and polluting the atmosphere of surrounding areas. The effectiveness of irrigation in the region is low: only 40-50% of taken water are reaching the agricultural plants. The result of such process is following: water resources of the region have been wasted, surface and ground waters mixed with agricultural, industrial and municipal waste are entering the Syrdarya and Amudarya rivers, making them unsuitable for drinking and fisheries. Furthermore, in the Aral region there is a shortage of water. A rural inhabitant receives only 15 liters instead of normal 125 liters, and an urban one receives 40 liters while in the country the average rate is 550 liters. In the crisis zone people fail to receive water, at times, during several days.  | There is a process of double desertification in the Aral Sea Basin. The first is caused by drying up of the Aral Sea, the second - by artificial bogging of irrigated lands. The result is an appearing of new desert in the center of belt of large deserts - the "Aralkum". The danger of it is that it is a monotonous saline land consisted of small-dispersion sea deposits and residues of mineral deposits washed away from irrigated fields. In past the seabed originally served for vast |
"factory"water collecting basin as natural desalinization due to live activities of rich aquatic biological world of the sea. Now the seabed is like an artificial volcano, which is throwing large quantities of salt and small-dispersion dust into the atmosphere. The pollution effect is aggravated by the fact that the Aral Sea is situated on the "highway" where strong currents of air are blowing from the West to the East. This promotes carrying up of aerosols to higher layers of atmosphere and spreading of them around the Earth. That is why pesticides from the Aral region are found out in blood of penguins in the Antarctic Continent. The distinctive Aral dust is falling on glaciers of Greenland, on forests of Norway, and on fields of Belorussia, which are remote from Central Asia by thousands kilometers. The other dangerous consequence of desiccation of the Aral Sea is a continuing degradation of mountain glaciers of the Himalayas, the Pamirs, the Tien Shan and the Altais, which are feeding the Syrdarya and the Amudarya rivers with vivifying moisture. Increase of dust on surfaces of glaciers and mineralization of precipitation are promoting their melting. This is a dangerous process for arid region because mountain glaciers of Central Asia are the only ancient reserves of fresh water and the main place for condensation of atmospheric moisture in the region. If the "cover" of own sedimentation will be further accrued , the glaciers will not be condensers of moisture any more and the sharp decrease of drains to the mentioned rivers will start. There are approved evidences that catastrophic degradation of the ozone layer is also connected to sharp increase of atmospheric content of hard continental aerosols, especially of chloride salts from the Aral and Kara-Bagoz-Gola (Caspian Gulf). So, the essential changes in the earth climate and especially in the region of Kazakstan-Central Asia are already designated and they are caused by the desiccation process of the Aral Sea mainly. Such climatic changes in the history of the Earth are known to the mankind but they were caused by volcano eruptions accompanied by carrying out of continental aerosols into atmosphere. These processes have been developed in conformity with natural laws and according to geological time scale, i.e. the process of climate changing has been continuing over hundreds and thousands years. This allowed the environment, the flora and fauna to adapt for new conditions. The danger of the Aral crisis is that the process is taking place under artificial factor and in real time scale, so the changes are rapid and human activities and biological system of the Earth are under threat of distraction. | Lowering of water inflow to the Aral Sea caused irreversible changes of hydrological and hydrochemical regimes of the sea and its ecosystems. Changes in salt balance tripled the salinity of the sea, turning it into a biological desert. Once prospered ecosystem of the sea supported 24 commercial species of fish. Currently it is dying. |  |
Among fish species there were mainly carp, perch, sturgeon, salmon, and also there were sheatfish and pike species. Changes in salt content of the Aral Sea and loss of the biota have led to complete crash of fishery and processing industries and that resulted in unemployment of 60,000 people connected with sea jobs. In 1996 only 547 tons of fish were caught in the destroyed deltas of the Syrdarya and Amudarya rivers and 100 tons of this amount were plaices. The high percent of pesticides is found out in fish tissue. High rates of strong cancerous substances are contained in reeds, rice, millet, and wheat, which are growing up around. In the past, the unique isolation of the Aral Sea Basin promoted the development of rich and diversified biota, which could be compared to Africa's one. The Aral region had a half of all biological species existed on the territory of the Union. Most of those species were disappeared or are in danger of disappearance. In the region there were 500 species of birds, 200 species of mammals and 100 species of fishes lived in fresh, slightly saline or saline water. Insects and invertebrates were countless. Flora of the region was also impressing. There were 1,200 species of flower-covered plants and 560 species of plants of tugai forests, including 29 endemic species of Central Asia. The area of 23,000 km (3% of Central Asian territory) of biologically active environment was marked as a preserved land in the past. After disintegration of the USSR, one-third of that territory lost its protected status, and the rest is not being supported duly because of funds lack. In recent years uncontrolled hunting and poaching also decreased the population of wild animals. There are no big predators in the region anymore. But local inhabitants remember turan tigers, who disturbed them often. | The process of degradation of nature in the Aral region has led to actively developing socioeconomic crisis. The first victims of this crisis are vulnerable strata of population: children, women, poor urban and rural people. The region has highest rates of children mortality in the former Soviet Union (75 for 1,000 births) and high rates of maternal mortality (about 120 for 10,000 confinements). Diseases of destitution are spread: infectious and parasitic ones, such as typhus, paratyphus, hepatitis, and also tuberculosis. Illnesses have tendency to increase. In epicenter of the ecological disaster there are widely spread anemia, malfunction of thyroid gland, diseases |  |
of kidney and liver. Diseases of blood, cancer, asthma, and heart malfunction are being developed. Medical studies confirm that development of such diseases is directly connected to the ecological catastrophe. Socially uncontrolled use of natural environment in the Aral Sea Basin stepped over the critical level of its self-defense, and exceeded the rate of self-recovering of the geosphere.
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