The Aral Sea

The Greatest Ecological Disaster of Our Time?

Research QuestionsWhere is the Aral Sea?

What happened to it?

What were the reasons for that?

What can History teach us about the Aral Sea?

What role did Irrigation play?

What about cultural differences?

(2007)

Location of Aral Sea Basin

Presentation Outline

The Aral Sea

• Aral Sea in History

• Area Sea 50 years ago

• Aral Sea Today

Recipe for Disaster• Irrigation• Desert

Climate• King Cotton• Rescue Plans

Aral Sea in Generalized History

The Aral Sea is arguably the greatest ecological disaster of our time

However, there is a danger in generalizing the details:

Some Misconceptions of Generalizing

The Aral Sea’s historical level is identical to the level in 1960

The Soviet Union and its government are to blame for the loss of the Aral Sea

The Loss of the Aral Sea is Irreversible

Generalization of History

One of the most useful, but dangerous tools for History Teachers is known as Generalization

Some examples of Generalization• Everyone before Christopher Columbus believed the world was flat• Native Americans lived in peace with each other and in harmony with nature before the arrival of the Europeans• The Industrial Revolution was a period of unprecedented productivity and unified technological progress

"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."   --  Oscar Wilde

…and in fact, it’s usually a lie.

Aral Sea in Pre-History

The Caspian, the Black, and the Aral Seas are remnants of the pre-historic Para-Tethys Sea

Aral Sea in History

Conjectured past shorelines of the Aral Sea

Reference:UNESCO. The Aral Sea Basin. Division of Water Sciences,1999

Dried River Bed leading to Caspian

Dried up in the 15th century and used to connect Amu Darya to the Caspian Sea

KERDERY MASOLEUM ON DRIED BOTTOM OF ARAL(in 1960, 18 meters, 60 feet, of water here)

19th Century Aral Sea

1850 map of the Aral Sea

Close-up of the Aral

The Aral Sea in 1960

Universally used as the High Water Marker for the Aral Sea

In 1960 the Aral Sea supported a fishing industry in Aralsk and Muynak

The salinity of the water was a mere 10g/L, compared to the average Ocean salinity of 35g/L

The Deltas of the feeder rivers supported forests and reedy marshes

A Time Lapse Video of the Aral

King Cotton

Before the US Civil War, Southern politicians believed that Cotton was King. In other words, that no one would dare to make war on the South, because that would threaten the important cotton crop.

After the blockade of the South, cotton production increased in Egypt and India. The Russian Empire wished to increased production in its newly acquired Central Asian territory…

“King Cotton” was a phrase used in the to illustrate the importance of the cotton crop to the Confederate economy during the American Civil War.

However, using cotton as a diplomatic weapon to force Europe's hand in the American Civil War proved a serious strategic blunder.

Central Asia’s Cotton King

Uzbekistan is Number THREE in the world in Cotton Exports

Reference: http://www.cotton.org/econ/cropinfo/cropdata/rankings.cfm

This was a long process…Irrigation has been used since prehistory in Central Asia for agriculture. The region is a vast desert crisscrossed by various rivers that vanish underneath the sands or empty into large brackish lakes.

In the 1930s, the Soviet Union succeeded in collectivizing large tracts of territory for the cultivation of cotton, the realization of a long-held Tsarist dream

“You Can’t Eat Cotton”- Faizullah Khojaev

The 1930s saw the creation of hundreds of massive irrigation projects using forced labor across Central Asia

This was not a popular movement, to say the least…

The former head of the Bukharan People’s Republic, Faizullah Khoajev, was victimized in one of the dreaded show trials of Stalin’s Purges for asking how the Uzbek people would gain from a cotton monoculture geared for export to Moscow.

Irrigation Problems

There are literally hundreds of canals diverting river water into the desert fields of Central Asia, the most impressive [and wasteful] being the Karakum Canal in Turkmenistan

•Started in 1954•Completed in 1988•1375 km in length•Much of its length is navigable by shipping•Carries 13 cubic kilometers of water annually•More than 50% of the water escapes enroute

New York TimesDevelopers Turn Aral Sea Into a CatastropheBy BILL KELLERTuesday, December 20, 1988TWENTY years ago anglers might have stood on this spot…

The shore is now 30 km from the city…

…A catastrophe of no lesser magnitude than Chernobyl…

…Since the 1950's, agricultural output in the Aral basin has increased four times...

The Beginning of the End

ABANDONED SHIPS ON THE DRIED BOTTOM OF THE GULF OF SARYSHAGANAK (SMALL ARAL SEA) SEPTEMBER 2005(photo by P. Micklin)

SHIPS OF THE DESERT AND SHIPS IN THE DESERT, FORMER GULF OF SARYSHAGANAK, SMALL ARAL SEA, SEPT. 2005 (photo by P. Micklin)

MASSIVE SALT-DUST STORMOF 4-29-08 THAT STRETCHED MORE THAN 600km DOWNWIND(MODIS natural color)

THE CHANGING PROFILE OF THE ARAL SEA

1960 1971 1976

1989 2009(mid-year)

2025?

Other Points of Interest

• The Anthrax Scare of the late 1990s• The Saving of the Little Aral• Failure of Government plans to “Save the Aral”• Siberian River Diversion?

Ob’

Irtysh

SIBERIAN RIVER DIVERSION PROJECT