Shrinking of Aral Sea: An Environmental Disaster in Central Asia

Archana Gupta∗
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Archana Gupta∗: Independent Researcher, New Delhi, India

International Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, 2020, vol. 6, issue 4, 162-170

Abstract: The five republics of Central Asia Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are confronting practically unsolvable emergency in the Basin of Aral Sea, the prime area of an ecological and human calamity. It is one of the largest anthropogenic environmental and human tragedies in the World. The root of this problem is attributable to a immense spreading of irrigation in the Central Asian Countries, in starting phase of 1950s, which highly compact inflows towards the Sea. This distraction of water for enormous irrigation development was done intentionally by the officials of Soviet Union, indifferent about the outcomes of their activities. After collapse of the Soviet Union, the crisis turned as a global issue, as the Central Asian countries became independent and couldn’t solve the crisis without global assistance. The development of human activity caused the desiccation of Sea and water crisis in the basin. However, the destruction of the Aral Sea and its ecosystems as a result of cotton monoculture constitutes one of the greatest man-made environmental tragedies ever. The Aral Sea is conceded as a crisis is not about water, nutrition, air quality, climate, economy and the health care systems that are pushed into crisis. A large number of international organizations, NGOs and countries with huge funds are also engaged in the region to rescue Aral Sea from the serious environmental crisis. The environmental, economical and social damage has been very vast. For example; wraps get dust from the seabed and store it over a huge populated territory and this residue likely contains pesticide and compound stores that are liable for the genuine development in mortality and other medical issues in this locale. The Aral Sea and now uncovered seabed may likewise be contaminated by overflow previous Soviet army installation and a natural weapons research center. As result, the biological system of the Aral Sea has crumpled, the Aral Sea Basin have been reported by the environment changes. There were several understandings have been marked since the 1980’s on programs considered to address the "Aral Sea Problem", but still agreements have not been compelling to forestalling this crisis, and as result the sea is still shrinking. In fact, many environmentalists have predicted disappearance of the Aral Sea by year 2025. The Aral Sea crisis has not only led to wide scale of environmental degradation, but also medical, social and economic problems. It has also become a human crisis.

Keywords: Central Asia; environmental crisis; degradation; ecosystem; disaster (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:apa:ijhass:2020:p:162-170

DOI: 10.20469/ijhss.6.20003-4

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