# data[].attributes.body
Surprised: That so much water could completely disappear
Learned: It affects the seasons
Wonder: Are there any solutions? Or ways to make the effects less drastic?

# data[].attributes.body
Prior to the 1960s, the Aral Sea provided fresh water for the people of the region to drink. But, now it is too salty. To understand why, you must first know that when rain water runs off to the rivers, it picks up salt in the dirt. Much of this salt water is carried to the ocean, but some is taken to lakes. If there is an input and output river to a lake, most of the salt water is removed. But, without and output, the lake water becomes more and more salt, until it is unusable. A similar thing happens in soil. Since fresh water does have small amounts of salt in it, it remains in the soil once the water has evaporated. If it is not rinsed out, then the soil becomes too salty for plants to grow. Both these things have happened in the Aral Sea region.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Aral Sea: Man-made environmental disaster - BBC News

# data[].attributes.headline
History shows that parched Aral Sea can be restored

# data[].attributes.subject
History shows that parched Aral Sea can be restored

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Aral Sea has lost 90 per cent of its volume since 1960 (Image&colon; NASA)

In less than a century, humanity destroyed the Aral Sea. It is one of the most emblematic environmental disasters. But now it seems the sea has collapsed at least twice before, and recovered both times.

In 1961, the Aral Sea in central Asia was the world's fourth largest lake. But massive irrigation programmes begun during the Soviet era diverted water from the rivers that feed it, reducing the lake's volume to just 10 per cent of what it was and leaving large areas dry. The ecosystem has collapsed, the desiccated lake bed is laced with pesticides that are spread by dust storms, and drinking water is polluted.

Now geologists have discovered that the Aral Sea has previously recovered naturally from such severe declines.

"The sea really has dried in the past and has come back," says Philip Micklin of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, who was not involved in the new study.

A history of collapse

Sergey Krivonogov of the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy in Novosibirsk, Russia, and his colleagues have compiled data showing how the Aral Sea has changed over the past 2000 years. Researchers had carbon-dated the shelves etched into the shoreline by past waves, and drilled cores to reveal which layers were once exposed to the surface.

It turns out that water levels in the Aral Sea have varied widely, says Krivonogov. Humans may have played a role, because they have been farming the area for 2500 years.

In 1961, the lake's surface was 54 metres above sea level. Yet between AD 400 and 600, it was just 10 metres above sea level, but recovered. Then between 1000 and 1500 it fell to 29 metres above sea level. The lake grew again after 1600, until the Soviet irrigation began.

"History tells us don't give up hope," says Micklin.

Loss of a lake

The modern collapse is no worse than the historical ones. By 1989, the lake was 40 metres above sea level, and a small northern lake split from the rest.

Since then the northern part has rebounded. In 2005, a dam separated the north and south sections, reducing water loss. The north Aral Sea is back up to 42 metres above sea level, and native fish have returned from refuges in the river, says Nikolay Aladin of the Russian Zoological Institute in Saint Petersburg.

"The fish catch is a small fraction of what it was in the mid-1950s, but the rehabilitation of the northern part has been pretty amazing," says Micklin.

However the main southern part is still shrinking. It has split into three salty lakes less than 29 metres above sea level. The eastern lake is so salty only brine shrimp live there.

There is no work under way to restore the southern region. It has always looked like a lost cause. So Aladin says it will keep shrinking and getting saltier until only brine shrimp are left.

Using less water to irrigate crops could restore the entire Aral Sea, says Micklin. But it would devastate the farms, which have actually increased the irrigated area since the end of the Soviet era. In places they have shifted from water-hungry rice and cotton to winter wheat, but they need to grow cotton to earn money.

Journal reference&colon; Gondwana Research, doi.org/svs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
History shows that parched Aral Sea can be restored

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Aral Sea has lost 90 per cent of its volume since 1960 (Image: NASA) In less than a century, humanity destroyed the Aral Sea. It is one of the most emblematic environmental disasters. But now it seems the sea has collapsed at least twice before, and recovered both times.

# data[].attributes.headline
Aral Sea's Eastern Basin Is Dry for First Time in 600 Years

# data[].attributes.subject
Aral Sea's Eastern Basin Is Dry for First Time in 600 Years

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Once the fourth largest lake in the world, Central Asia's shrinking Aral Sea has reached a new low, thanks to decades-old water diversions for irrigation and a more recent drought. Satellite imagery released this week by NASA shows that the eastern basin of the freshwater body is now completely dry.

"It is likely the first time it has completely dried in 600 years, since medieval desiccation associated with diversion of Amu Darya [river] to the Caspian Sea," Philip Micklin, an Aral Sea expert and a geographer emeritus from Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, told NASA about the sea's eastern basin. (See " Photos: Dried Up Aral Sea Aftermath.")

An image made by NASA's Terra satellite in August and released on Tuesday shows the sea without its eastern lobe, a noticeable difference from an image made on August 25, 2000.

Actually a freshwater lake, the Aral Sea once had a surface area of 26,000 square miles (67,300 square kilometers). It had long been been ringed with prosperous towns and supported a lucrative muskrat pelt industry and thriving fishery, providing 40,000 jobs and supplying the Soviet Union with a sixth of its fish catch.

The Aral Sea was fed by two of Central Asia's mightiest rivers, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya. But in the 1960s, Soviet engineers decided to make the vast steppes bloom. They built an enormous irrigation network, including 20,000 miles of canals, 45 dams, and more than 80 reservoirs, all to irrigate sprawling fields of cotton and wheat in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. (See " 8 Rivers Run Dry From Overuse.")

But the system was leaky and inefficient, and the rivers drained to a trickle. In the decades that followed, the Aral Sea was reduced to a handful of small lakes, with a combined volume that was one-tenth the original lake's size and that had much higher salinity, due to all the evaporation.

As a result of the drying over the past decades, millions of fish died, coastlines receded miles from towns, and those few people who remained were plagued by dust storms that contained the toxic residue of industrial agriculture and weapons testing in the area. (See " Before and After Photos: Vast Aral Sea Vanishing.")

By 2000, the lake had separated into the North (Small) Aral Sea in Kazakhstan and the South (Large) Aral Sea in Uzbekistan. The South Aral had further split into western and eastern lobes. The eastern lobe of the South Aral nearly dried up in 2009 but rebounded in 2010 after more rain.

According to Micklin, the recent desiccation is due to continued withdrawals from the rivers for irrigation and less rain and snow in the Pamir Mountains, whose runoff feeds the Amu Darya.

In 2005, a World Bank‒funded dam and restoration project began in Kazakhstan with the goal of improving the health of the Syr Darya and increasing the flow into the North Aral Sea. Since then the water level has risen there and salinity has decreased.

But Micklin said he expects cyclical drying will "continue for some time" in the eastern basin.

Follow Brian Clark Howard on Twitter and Google+.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Aral Sea's Eastern Basin Is Dry for First Time in 600 Years

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Once the fourth largest lake in the world, Central Asia's shrinking Aral Sea has reached a new low, thanks to decades-old water diversions for irrigation and a more recent drought. Satellite imagery released this week by NASA shows that the eastern basin of the freshwater body is now completely dry.

# data[].attributes.body
Although the Aral Sea region is having great troubles, other places also suffer from water stress. For example if it wasn't for the Nile river, life in Egypt would be nearly impossible, because people there depend on the Nile for all their water. But since Egypt is not irrigated very much, water stress doesn't pose as big as a threat. Population density influences how much water is used to irrigate crops, because the more people, the more food that is needed to grow to feed those people. It is even worse if it is an arid climate. Also, some plants need more water, such as cotton and rice. This leads to more water being used for farming. A way to reduce water stress is by growing less thirsty plants and using less water as a family. A dripping faucet costs 3,000 gallons of water.

# data[].attributes.body
The shrinkage of the Arral of Sea has caused many health problems. For example, dust storms dubbed "black blizzards" are strong winds the carry sand that was once the bottom of the sea. Now, this sand is carried along with many toxic chemicals, which has caused diseases from throat cancer to tuberculosis. Water is also dangerous. People would once get their water from the Sea, but today, they must get their water from rivers or wells, but much of this water is not fit to drink. It has salt, sewage, and chemicals from farming. These illness causing issues cause many pregnant women to become sick, meaning their babies are sick once born. Few make it to their first birthday. It will cost billions of dollars to create water treatment plants, take less water from rivers, and grow less thirsty plants, but they have started by creating a "dike and dam" to move water to the northern sea from the Syr River.

# data[].attributes.body
Where there is now sand and rusted ship hulks was once home to many fisheries. Fisheries provided jobs for over 35,000 workers catching approximately 95 million fish per year and producing 20 million cans of seafood each year. Now, the water is much to salty for many species of fish that once lived in the seal. Also, when the water edge retreated, the fisheries were to far to catch anything, and fishing ended in 1982. Now, joblessness in Kazakhstan is highest in the Aral Sea region. Today, there are only 3,000 people of the 40,000 who once lived in Moynaq.

# data[].attributes.body
Cotton is crop that earns a lot of money for farmers and improves the economy, so the government wanted to find a place where it could grow. As a result, the Amu and Syr rivers were damed up to irrigate the land, but since 90% of the water from the rivers were stored in the dams, the Aral Sea began to evaporate and shrink. This cause the summers to be hotter and winters to be colder, shrinking the growing season from 200 days to 170 days. Once this occurred, farmers began to grow rice because of the shorter growing season needed, but since it still requires a lot of water, the sea continued to dry.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1960, Moynaq was a town known for its fishing that was surrounded by the Aral sea, with a population of 40,000 people. Today, the town of Moynaq is 90 miles from the Aral Sea's shore. Fishing and farming have both depleted, and ill health has increased. The land where the Aral Sea once was now suffers from water stress, or needing more water then it has.