4 ms·

Shrinking Aral Sea

42 points by benologist 11y ago

groutexpectatio 11y ago
what is also interesting is that as the Aral/Ural sea has dried up is that the land bridge that has formed has opened greater access to a former Soviet biological weapons lab/military base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vozrozhdeniya_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vozrozhdeniya_Island
ChuckMcM 11y ago
On a smaller scale there is Mono lake in California. Same cause, water diverted for irrigation, lake dries up.
- mc32 11y ago
  I think there is a difference in the Aral Sea and Mono Lake. The Aral Sea was economically vital to its many communities in addition to providing natural habitats. Now the region is plagued by the effects (health, crops, fisheries) of toxic dust from the exposed seabed. Mono Lake is beautiful and provides habitat for some birds, but was never economically vital for a vast region.
  - WildUtah 11y ago
    Owens Valley was a prosperous farming community before LA diverted all the water and dried up the lake. Now Owens Valley has been abandoned for about a century.
    - pstuart 11y ago
      Somebody should make a movie about that /s
    - mc32 11y ago
      The farmers were compensated, as I understand it. The Aral sea area was very productive and supported tens of thousands of fishers and nearly a million people lived within the general catchment area, Inyo county has, what, twenty thousand people. The Aral sea is an area of near total devastation today and the people who remain suffer quite a lot economically and health-wise as a consequence. Let's put this in perspective, the Aral sea was larger than lake Michigan, now it's one tenth its original size and three times as salty as seawater.
      - dalke 11y ago
        "The farmers were compensated, as I understand it." Here's a relevant line from the Jethro Tull song, "Farm On The Freeway" They forgot they told us what this old land was for. Grow two tons the acre, boy, between the stones. This was no Southfork, it was no Ponderosa. But it was the place that I called home. They say they gave me compensation... That's not what I'm chasing. I was a rich man before yesterday. And what do I want with a million dollars and a pickup truck? Remember too that was we pay compensation for the lives we kill in the Middle East. Eg, http://www.thenation.com/article/blood-money-afghanistans-reparations-files/ http://www.thenation.com/article/blood-money-afghanistans-re... . So "compensation" isn't really that humane of a word.
        mc32 11y ago
        Well, compare it to the not compensation people living in the Aral sea got,and I think we can decide what might be the alternative we choose. With growing human populations we know we have to relocate resources, but we must make them as responsibly as we can, with as limited negative impact as we can afford. Owens was begun in the '20s? Aral sea engineering in the 60s? That's 40 years of better understanding of the repercussions of badly planned engineering projects, yet it was pushed thru regardless.
        dalke 11y ago
        I do not mean to diminish what has happened around the Aral Sea. What I mean by that is, don't diminish or dismiss what happened in Owens by saying that the people involved "were compensated". FWIW, I would have preferred the phrase "The farmers received some compensation, as I understand it."
- cjensen 11y ago
  Mono Lake is smaller than it used to be, but it is growing slowly thanks to legal protections [1]. Owens Lake [2] to the south of Mono Lake is gone. It was larger than Mono Lake. Lake bed salts blown by the wind are pretty toxic, and Los Angeles was required to use some water to reduce dust. The largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi used to be Tulare Lake [3] in central California. It's gone and the southern San Joaquin Valley no longer drains to the ocean. Salts and other junk is slowly building up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Audubon_Society_v._Superior_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Audubon_Society_v._Su... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owens_Lake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owens_Lake [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake
  - mc32 11y ago
    On the other hand, the Salton Sea didn't exist before the engineering accident which created it.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - greglindahl 11y ago
      The most recent incarnation was created by an accident, sure. The lake has existed many times in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea#History
y_u_no_rust 11y ago
Read this as Anal Sea HAHA
SimeVidas 11y ago
Btw there was a very good article about this in National Geographic Magazine earlier this year, with interesting insight from the people who live there.
flohofwoe 11y ago
I recently learned about another somewhat related large-scale Soviet environmental project called the 'Northern River Reversal', which probably would have undone the damage to the Aral Sea (but most likely would have messed up the environment in northern Siberia even more). Within this project there were also tests performed for the 'Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy' program where nukes were used to dig out parts of a planned river-reversal-channel. Crazy times. [edit, link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_river_reversal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_river_reversal]
- larsga 11y ago
  Kapuscinski has an outstanding piece on both of these projects in his book "Imperium". Basically, the real purpose of these projects was to remove all the private fruit gardens and replace them with state-owned cotton farms. State-owned in this case really means "owned by the families that ran the Soviet republic", of course, since these were largely independent of Moscow.
restalis 11y ago
Does anyone still have doubts about the fact that we are in an Anthropocene era? When lakes like this (once having a surface of about 70000 km²) disappears and the soil all around enriches with layers of salts carried by wind it's just hard to argue that we as humans haven't have any noticeable effect on Earth's geology.
briantakita 11y ago
Systemic issues with how human civilation is run, especially large scale pertrol chemical monoculture agriculture is to blame. We will continue to have these issues until we start innovating to use more restorative & ecologically friendly techniques. One issue is the feedback cycle of nature is slower than the snap judgments of humans with vested interests. One thing I've noticed is some people either understand the systemic issues & some people do not. I speculate that a person pays attention to certain things. Many people will discount another person's perspective if they cannot observe the same distinctions.

42 points by benologist 11y ago

what is also interesting is that as the Aral/Ural sea has dried up is that the land bridge that has formed has opened greater access to a former Soviet biological weapons lab/military base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vozrozhdeniya_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vozrozhdeniya_Island

ChuckMcM 11y ago

On a smaller scale there is Mono lake in California. Same cause, water diverted for irrigation, lake dries up.

mc32 11y ago
I think there is a difference in the Aral Sea and Mono Lake. The Aral Sea was economically vital to its many communities in addition to providing natural habitats. Now the region is plagued by the effects (health, crops, fisheries) of toxic dust from the exposed seabed. Mono Lake is beautiful and provides habitat for some birds, but was never economically vital for a vast region.
- WildUtah 11y ago
  Owens Valley was a prosperous farming community before LA diverted all the water and dried up the lake. Now Owens Valley has been abandoned for about a century.
  - pstuart 11y ago
    Somebody should make a movie about that /s
  - mc32 11y ago
    The farmers were compensated, as I understand it. The Aral sea area was very productive and supported tens of thousands of fishers and nearly a million people lived within the general catchment area, Inyo county has, what, twenty thousand people. The Aral sea is an area of near total devastation today and the people who remain suffer quite a lot economically and health-wise as a consequence. Let's put this in perspective, the Aral sea was larger than lake Michigan, now it's one tenth its original size and three times as salty as seawater.
    - dalke 11y ago
      "The farmers were compensated, as I understand it." Here's a relevant line from the Jethro Tull song, "Farm On The Freeway" They forgot they told us what this old land was for. Grow two tons the acre, boy, between the stones. This was no Southfork, it was no Ponderosa. But it was the place that I called home. They say they gave me compensation... That's not what I'm chasing. I was a rich man before yesterday. And what do I want with a million dollars and a pickup truck? Remember too that was we pay compensation for the lives we kill in the Middle East. Eg, http://www.thenation.com/article/blood-money-afghanistans-reparations-files/ http://www.thenation.com/article/blood-money-afghanistans-re... . So "compensation" isn't really that humane of a word.
      - mc32 11y ago
        Well, compare it to the not compensation people living in the Aral sea got,and I think we can decide what might be the alternative we choose. With growing human populations we know we have to relocate resources, but we must make them as responsibly as we can, with as limited negative impact as we can afford. Owens was begun in the '20s? Aral sea engineering in the 60s? That's 40 years of better understanding of the repercussions of badly planned engineering projects, yet it was pushed thru regardless.
        dalke 11y ago
        I do not mean to diminish what has happened around the Aral Sea. What I mean by that is, don't diminish or dismiss what happened in Owens by saying that the people involved "were compensated". FWIW, I would have preferred the phrase "The farmers received some compensation, as I understand it."
cjensen 11y ago
Mono Lake is smaller than it used to be, but it is growing slowly thanks to legal protections [1]. Owens Lake [2] to the south of Mono Lake is gone. It was larger than Mono Lake. Lake bed salts blown by the wind are pretty toxic, and Los Angeles was required to use some water to reduce dust. The largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi used to be Tulare Lake [3] in central California. It's gone and the southern San Joaquin Valley no longer drains to the ocean. Salts and other junk is slowly building up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Audubon_Society_v._Superior_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Audubon_Society_v._Su... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owens_Lake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owens_Lake [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake
- mc32 11y ago
  On the other hand, the Salton Sea didn't exist before the engineering accident which created it.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - greglindahl 11y ago
    The most recent incarnation was created by an accident, sure. The lake has existed many times in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea#History

y_u_no_rust 11y ago

Read this as Anal Sea HAHA

SimeVidas 11y ago

Btw there was a very good article about this in National Geographic Magazine earlier this year, with interesting insight from the people who live there.

flohofwoe 11y ago

I recently learned about another somewhat related large-scale Soviet environmental project called the 'Northern River Reversal', which probably would have undone the damage to the Aral Sea (but most likely would have messed up the environment in northern Siberia even more). Within this project there were also tests performed for the 'Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy' program where nukes were used to dig out parts of a planned river-reversal-channel. Crazy times. [edit, link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_river_reversal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_river_reversal]

larsga 11y ago
Kapuscinski has an outstanding piece on both of these projects in his book "Imperium". Basically, the real purpose of these projects was to remove all the private fruit gardens and replace them with state-owned cotton farms. State-owned in this case really means "owned by the families that ran the Soviet republic", of course, since these were largely independent of Moscow.

restalis 11y ago

Does anyone still have doubts about the fact that we are in an Anthropocene era? When lakes like this (once having a surface of about 70000 km²) disappears and the soil all around enriches with layers of salts carried by wind it's just hard to argue that we as humans haven't have any noticeable effect on Earth's geology.

briantakita 11y ago

Systemic issues with how human civilation is run, especially large scale pertrol chemical monoculture agriculture is to blame. We will continue to have these issues until we start innovating to use more restorative & ecologically friendly techniques. One issue is the feedback cycle of nature is slower than the snap judgments of humans with vested interests. One thing I've noticed is some people either understand the systemic issues & some people do not. I speculate that a person pays attention to certain things. Many people will discount another person's perspective if they cannot observe the same distinctions.