Introduction
The Aral Sea is a famous natural feature in the whole world. It was among the largest land-locked natural waters in the world. This particular sea has of later been in the news for quite negative reasons. As a result of human activities, the Aral Sea located in Central Asia is now disappearing. In fact, this particular sea is almost over half size gone. Many researchers have been mulling over the reasons for the disappearance of this great natural resource. It has been established that it is disappearing because of the unfavorable human activities that lead to the evaporation of the waters as well as the reduction of the water volume in the sea. The major human activity that has remained the main cause of this Aral Sea crisis is irrigation along the rivers that draw their waters from this particular sea. This large scale irrigation has caused immense reduction of the water volume in the sea. The net result has been serious degradation of the environment and ecological damage (White, 2014). Moreover, there have been other issues such as adverse effects on the human health and economic problems. The place that is highly affected by this specific crisis is Kazakhstan, which is a landlocked place in Central Asia. Being land-locked, this sea remains quite important to this place. Therefore, the disappearing water from the Aral Sea has been of immense adverse impact to Kazakhstan (Roy, Smith, Morris, Orlovsky & Khalilov, 2014). However, there are partnerships with other international bodies and countries to cure the problem. Milestones have been achieved through the partnerships and collaborations.
Background Research
A lot of researchers in existing literature acknowledge that the shrinking of the Aral Sea in Central Asia is a major problem caused by human activities (Gupta & Gupta, 2016). The Aral Sea crisis is a classic example of natural area destroyed by the activities of human beings. Existing literature about this issue shows that a lot of scholars dwell on explaining the real causes of the Aral Sea crisis within Central Asia (Lioubimtseva, 2014). It is important to mention that for a period of almost 30 years, the utilization of water for irrigation of the cotton mono-culture as well as huge use of insecticides, pesticides defoliants and herbicides did result into the ecological, economic and the social insecurity of the people in Central Asia (Micklin, Aladin & Plotnikov, 2013). The Aral Sea problem has had a huge tall on the ecological balance of the region as well as the health of human beings residing in Central Asia, especially places like Kazakhstan.
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It is vital to reiterate the commonly pointed out information by scholars within the existing literature researched that the Aral Sea was formerly one of the largest inland seas in the entire world (Ge, Abuduwaili, Ma & Liu, 2016). It was a symbol of natural beauty in Central Asia (Freedman & Neuzil, 2015). However, it has today become the opposite posing huge and serous health and ecological danger within the region (Kadirov, 2015). It is now the symbol of what can emerge and befall human beings as well as the whole ecosystem when the trans-boundary water is not managed well. Really, the dramatic environmental degradation brought about by this crisis has affected over 3.5 million people in Central Asia (Jin, Wei, Yang & Lin, 2017). Among these people affected by the Aral Sea Crisis, there are about 1.5 million children.
Notably, the irrigation activities of human beings living near the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya rivers is believed by most scholars to have contributed to the disappearance of the Aral Sea. This sea did disappear to over a half of its original size. Today, over 40,000 sq km of this sea’s heavily saline seabed is open (Ge, Abuduwaili, Ma & Liu, 2016). It is now being blown away by the heavy wind known to be in this region (Micklin, 2016). Moreover, the rapid growth of wild plants is causing further disappearance of the parts that were once seabed. What is happening now is environmental degradation of this whole region and consequential desertification. Furthermore, the local economy is adversely affected by the irrigation activities that took away a lot of the water from the Aral Sea.
However, there are efforts exerted through partnerships to ensure that the problem is put under control. These efforts to remedy the situation are highly implemented in Kazakhstan, the place that is hardest hit by the Aral Sea environmental crisis. Countries in Central Asia have come together to implement policies regarding the partitioning of the trans-boundary waters of the Aral Sea (Lioubimtseva, 2015). Experts have been consulted and they are always conducting research to establish best principles and practices for future use of the water in the Aral Sea. Moreover, Kazakhstan has also been in contact with the international partners to restore the waters in the Aral Sea. For instance, this international collaboration has led to the significant restoration of the Northern Aral Sea basin. There are other different collaborations that can be mentioned and explained.
Conclusion
The Aral Sea crisis is a major environmental issue that is causing ecological, economic and social problems in the Central Asia region. The disappearance of water from the Aral Sea must be controlled through international partnerships. There must be elaborate efforts geared towards controlling the human use of the water present in this sea. Moreover, the region must embark on efforts to restore water in the sea.
References
Freedman, E., & Neuzil, M. (Eds.). (2015). Environmental Crises in Central Asia: From Steppes to Seas, from Deserts to Glaciers . Routledge.
Ge, Y., Abuduwaili, J., Ma, L., & Liu, D. (2016). Temporal Variability and Potential Diffusion Characteristics of Dust Aerosol Originating from the Aral Sea Basin, Central Asia. Water, Air, & Soil Pollution , 227 (2), 63.
Gupta, A., & Gupta, A. (2016). Environmental Challenges in Aral sea basin: impact on Human health. International Journal of Research in Social Sciences , 6 (8), 419-440.
Jin, Q., Wei, J., Yang, Z. L., & Lin, P. (2017). Irrigation-Induced Environmental Changes around the Aral Sea: An Integrated View from Multiple Satellite Observations. Remote Sensing , 9 (9), 900.
Kadirov, D. (2015, June). Ecological Footprint of Chrematistic Marketing Systems: The Case of Aral Sea. In Annual Macromarketing Conference (p. 204).
Lioubimtseva, E. (2014). Impact of climate change on the Aral Sea and its Basin. In The Aral Sea (pp. 405-427). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Lioubimtseva, E. (2015). A multi-scale assessment of human vulnerability to climate change in the Aral Sea Basin. Environmental Earth Sciences , 73 (2), 719-729.
Micklin, P. (2016). The future Aral Sea: hope and despair. Environmental Earth Sciences , 75 (9), 844.
Micklin, P., Aladin, N. V., & Plotnikov, I. (Eds.). (2013). The Aral Sea: the devastation and partial rehabilitation of a great lake (Vol. 10178). Springer Science & Business Media.
Roy, S. B., Smith, M., Morris, L., Orlovsky, N., & Khalilov, A. (2014). Impact of the desiccation of the Aral Sea on summertime surface air temperatures. Journal of arid environments , 110 , 79-85.
White, K. D. (2014). Nature and economy in the Aral Sea basin. In The Aral Sea (pp. 301-335). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
