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The Aral Sea is an endorheic inland sea in Central Asia; it lies between Kazakhstan in the north and Karakalpakstan, an autonomous region of Uzbekistan, in the south. Since the 1960s, the Aral Sea has been shrinking, as the rivers that feed it were diverted by the USSR for irrigation. The Aral Sea is badly polluted, largely as the result of weapons testing, industrial projects, and fertilizer runoff before the breakup of the Soviet Union.1 Ecological problems
The major ecological problem is that diversion of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers for irrigation has shrunk the Aral Sea dramatically; the Aral Sea has been drying up for about 40 years. This has brought about a number of ecological problems both for the sea and for the surrounding area.
1.1 History
The Soviet Union decided in 1918 that the two rivers that fed the Aral Sea—the Amu Darya in the south and the Syr Darya in the northeast—would be diverted for irrigating the desert in order to grow rice, melons, cereal, and, above all, cotton; this was part of the Soviet plan for cotton, or "white gold," to become a major export. (This did eventually end up becoming the case, and even today Uzbekistan is one of the world's biggest exporters of cotton.)
The irrigation canals began to be built on a large scale in the 1930sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s Years: 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 Events and trends Technology Jet engine invented Link Trainer invented Sc. Many of the irrigation canals were poorly built, letting water leak out or evaporate; from the Kara Kum canal, the largest in Central Asia, perhaps 30–70% of the water went to waste. Still today only 12% of Uzbekistan's irrigation canal length is waterproofed.
By 1960Events January-February January 1 Independence of Cameroon January 9 Aswan High Dam construction begins in Egypt January 11 Chad declares its independence. January 14 Ralph Chubb, the gay poet and printer, dies at Fair Oak Cottage in Hampshire. January 23, somewhere between 20 and 50 cubic kilometers of water were going to the land instead of the sea. Thus, most of the sea's water supply had now been diverted, and in the 1960s, the Aral Sea began to shrink. From 19611961 (As MAD Magazine pointed out on its first cover for the year) was the first "upside-down" year i. one that looked the same upside down since 1881, and the last until 6009. Events January January 1 The farthing coin, used since the 13th century, cease to 1970Events January events January 1 Construction begins on Arcosanti, by Paolo Soleri, in Mayer, Arizona, located 65, miles north of Phoenix, Arizona. January 1 Unix epoch at 00:00:00 UTC. January 12 Biafra capitulates, ending the Nigerian civil war. January, the Aral's sea level fell at a mean of 20 cm a year; in the 1970sMillennia: 1st millennium 2nd millennium 3rd millennium Centuries: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s Years: 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 Events and trends, the average rate nearly tripled to 50–60 cm per year, and by the 1980sMillennia: 1st millennium 2nd millennium 3rd millennium Centuries: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s Years: 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 Events and trends it continued to drop, now with a mean of 80–90 cm each year. Even seeing this, the rate of water usage for irrigation continued to increase: the amount of water taken from the rivers doubled between 1960 and 19801980 is a leap year starting on Tuesday. Events January-February January 1- April 1 National steel strike in United Kingdom January 1 Changes to the Swedish Act of Succession creates Victoria of Sweden, Crown Princess over her younger brother January 5 He; the cotton production nearly doubled in the same period.
The disappearance of the lake was no surprise to the Soviets; they expected it to happen long before. The USSR apparently considered the Aral to be "nature's error," and a Soviet engineer said in 1968 that "it is obvious to everyone that the evaporation of the Aral Sea is inevitable."
