Destruction of the Aral Sea Uzbekistan Created by: Michael Jolitz Geography 308 Russia and Eastern E

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Destruction of the Aral Sea UzbekistanCreated
by Michael JolitzGeography 308 Russia and
Eastern EuropeProfessor Zoltan
GrossmanUniversity of Wisconsin Eau Claire
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Location
http//www.fao.org/ag/agl/swlwpnr/reports/y_nr/z_u
z/uz_style/uzflag.gif
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Water
Syr Darya
Amu Darya
http//www.panos.org.uk/images/features/0303water.
jpg

• The Amu Darya, in the west, and the Syr Darya, in
  the east
• Their 600 tributaries take source in the Tien
  Shan and the Alai highlands.
• They feed waterways on their way to the Aral Sea.
  
• The rivers fall short of feeding the Sea properly
  to sustain it.
• The desert has reclaimed a good portion of the
  Aral Sea and the rest struggles to survive.

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Rivers
http//freenet.kg/gallery/irmela/Thumbs/Thumb_IMG0
002.jpg
Syr Darya Tributaries
http//www.nimbus.it/liguria/rlm03/primo_piano/ima
ges/Amu20Darya20River.jpg
http//www.astronautix.com/graphics/s/syrdarya.jpg
Syr Darya
Amu Darya
The Syr Darya is formed by the confluence of the
Naryn and Qoradaryo rivers in the eastern
Ferghana Valley With a length of 1,374 miles
-1,876 miles including the Narynthe Syr Darya
is the longest river in Central Asia
The Amu Darya is formed by the junction of the
Vakhsh and Pandj rivers, which rise in the Pamir
Mts. of central Asia. Its length is 1,600 miles
long
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Water and Pollution

• Once the 4th biggest inland sea in the world
• 53 Meters above sea level
• Evaporation 60 square Kilometers of water each
  year
• Environmental disaster
• Large Controversy
• Boron Pollution
• Phenol Pollution

http//enrin.grida.no/aral/aralsea/english/images/
diagram/kaz/a_stat01.gif
http//enrin.grida.no/htmls/uzbek/env2001/content/
soe/english/maps/places3.gif
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Agriculture
Simple Irrigation System

• Upstream irrigation for the growing of rice and
  cotton consumed more than 90 of the natural flow
  of water from the Tien Shan mountains.
• Sea Surface declined
• 27,000 square kilometers of former sea bottom
  became dry surface
• 60 of water volume was lost

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Cotton
Cotton Harvest, Uzbekistan

• Major Uzbekistan Crop
• since Soviet era
• Intense Agriculture
• Pesticides
• Intense Irrigation
• Fertilizers

http//images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/t
argets/images/pho/t002/T002695A.jpg
http//enrin.grida.no/aral/aralsea/english/images/
diagram/taj/v_stat21.gif
http//www.pbs.org/journeytoplanetearth/hope/uzbek
istan.html
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Production
http//www.aralfood.com/images/prod.jpg
http//www.fas.usda.gov/cotton/circular/1997/97-08
/cover/uzbek.gif

• thriving environment until the 1960's
• extensive irrigation schemes put in place
• River water diverted from Tien Shan Mountains,
• Would normally have flowed into the Aral sea
• Huge amounts of this diverted water lay as
  stagnant pools across vast, badly managed cotton
  and rice fields. As a result the Aral has now
  lost more than 60 of its water.

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Rice

• South of the Aral Sea
• Rice Paddy Fields are shown by the square boxes
• This fields have a very high water portion.
  shown by Landsat Image
• There are also artificial fishing ponds.
• Usually filled in early spring helps to allow the
  fishing industry to survive.

http//www.dfd.dlr.de/app/land/aralsee/landsat_mss
.html
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Livelihood

• Once a busy shipping trade between its northern
  port of Aralsk and the river ports of the
  Amu-Darya, some as distant as Tajikistan
• Aralsk is now landlocked about 100 km from the
  water. It, like Muynak has fishing boats sitting
  high and dry on what was once the bottom of the
  Aral Sea.

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Abandoned Ships
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The Changing Aral
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Life blood

• Once abundant fish resources
• Once provided a livelihood for several hundred
  thousand people.
• People living around those canals and using those
  waterways now depends on their existence--the
  very existence that sucks the life "blood" of the
  Aral.

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Fishing Industry

• 20 species of fish
• Fish was based on three species of fishes bream,
  sazan, Aral roach (vobla). A very valuable fish -
  Aral barbal and white-eye were caught in the Aral
  Sea.
• Located in coastal areas and rivers mouths.
• Annual catching was 300-400 thousand centners
  (220.46 lbs) of fish.

Fish Catching in the Aral Sea (tons)
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Fish
Bream
Sazan
Aral roach (vobla).
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Wastes

• Shrinking steadily, adding to the desertification
  of the lakebed
• Contamination of the region by exposing DDT,
  chemical pesticides, and natural salts.
• Hazardous materials that are strewn about by
  wind, not only contaminate the food chain, water,
  and air but cause countless human health
  disorders.
• A number of buried nuclear waste processing and
  chemical weapons sites that damage the soil.

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Salinity

• Salinity has increased from 10 grams/liter to
  40-50 grams/liter from 1960 to near present.
• This is due to the lack of fresh water inflow
• Drinking water in the region contains four times
  more salt per litre than the limit recommended by
  the World Health Organization

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• This figure shows areas where the environment in
  Uzbekistan and the surrounding areas have been
  severely degradated.
• The impact of losing water has caused severe
  salinization

http//www.dfd.dlr.de/app/land/aralsee/salin.html
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Salt Pans
The white large object on the left border of the
image is an artificial salt pan. Discharge water,
which is highly contaminated by salt
accumulation, is diverted into such pans in order
to decrease soil salinity. From these pans the
water evaporates totally unused and creates
salt crusts and olonchaks.
Salt Pan
http//www.goacom.com/goatoday/2003/oct/img/TarSal
tpan2.jpg
http//www.dfd.dlr.de/app/land/aralsee/landsat_tm.
html
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Health
cns.miis.edu/pubs/ dc/briefs/vozipres.htm

• TB,
• Throat cancer
• Tuberculosis
• Many children are born with defects.

• Typhoid,
• Paratyphoid
• Hepatitis contaminated drinking water
• Intestinal disease
• Cancers
• Anemia
• Dystrophy
• Cholera
• Dysentery

http//www.unesco.org/courier/2000_01/photos/13.jp
g
The Aral Sea region has one of the worlds
highest rates of malformed or handicapped children
http//cns.miis.edu/pubs/dc/briefs/images/vos/vos6
b.jpg
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Climate Effects

• Drier shorter summer
• Longer Colder Winters
• Growing Season now 170 Days
• Pasture Productivity declined by Half
• Higher Evaporation Rates

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Dust Storms

• More than 50 days of storms a year
• 20-25 meters per second

www.nws.noaa.gov/ om/brochures/duststrm.htm
http//oemagazine.com
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Dust

• Aral Sea is located along a powerful air stream
  running from west to east.
• It contributes to aerosol
• transference into upper
• layers and fast spread in the
• atmosphere of the Earth.

http//earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImage
s/Images/ISS002-ESC-9147.jpg
Dust Storm From Aral Region
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Effects of Dust Storms

• Reduces visibility to less than a quarter mile.
• Respiratory ailments, Asthma
• Erosion, Desertification, Crop Damage
• The erosion loosens up contaminated toxic soils.

Erosion
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Dust

• Traces of pesticides from the Aral region were
  found in the blood of penguins in the Antarctic
• Aral dust has been found on Greenland's glaciers
• Norway's forests
• Belarus' fields
• All situated thousands of kilometers away from
  Central Asia.

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Anthrax

• Vozrozhdeniya Island - New York Times Article
• Renaissance Island
• Anthrax Storage Facility
• During Gorbachevs glasnost and perestroika
  campaign

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Vozrozhdeniya Island

• The island was once 77 square miles
• In 1999 770 Square miles
• Fear of Terrorism
• Yeltsin vowed in 1992 to clean up
• Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have both independently
  asked for US help.

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Radioactive Waste

• MAYLUU-SUU, Kyrgyzstan
• Outside the rusting, closed Izolit
  uranium-processing plant, 23 radioactive waste
  sites exist in the landslide-prone hills
• Could spill poison into the river below and on to
  the most populous region of Central Asia.
• About 70 million cubic feet of tailings left from
  refining uranium ore during the Soviet era are
  buried in this mountain valley along the
  Mayluu-Suu River.
• Fergana Valley, the region's agricultural
  heartland with 12 million inhabitants.

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Radioactive Waste

• In Kazakhstan, huge mining and metallurgy
  complexes were built
• They have never been modernized
• Intense local air pollution.
• In the west of Kyrgyzstan, radioactive waste from
  uranium plants is stocked without protection and
  risks polluting the rivers in neighboring
  Uzbekistan.
• These Eventually may reach the Aral Sea.

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Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan Factory
Coal Mound on Roadside
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Radioactive Waste
Concentration of Radioactive Waste Storage in the
Ferghana Valley
Biological Waste Facility Shown in Aral Sea
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Neutralization of the Problem

• 1980s cultivation of new large irrigated areas
  banned
• Large scale water resource projects introduced
• 1993 Crosspiece Divided Aral Sea and water
  from the Syrdarya was diverted back into one
  part. Vegetation started to recover and salinity
  decreased.
• It was destroyed in 1999

A footnote about the Aral Sea Disaster The
locals around the Aral sea joke that if everyone
who'd come to study this disaster had brought a
bucket of water, the sea would be full again by
now.
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Bibliography

• Aral Sea - http//enrin.grida.no/aral/aralsea/engl
  ish/arsea/arsea.htm8
• http//www.dfd.dlr.de/app/land/aralsee/salin.html
• Earth Observatory Nasa - http//earthobservatory.n
  asa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id4819
  
• New York Times - http//www.phaster.com/unpretenti
  ous/uzbekistan_anthrax.html
• Washington Times - http//www.washtimes.com/world/
  20040305-100450-8640r.htm
• The Water Page - http//www.thewaterpage.com/aral.
  htm
• Veggie Global - http//www.veggieglobal.com/ggl/un
  ited-oceans.htm
• http//www.britannica.com