Our Series on Artificial Lands takes us to Central Asia, in the region of the Aral Sea.
Historically, the Aral Sea was the second largest terminal lake in the World after the Caspian Sea, which lies a few hundred miles to the West. It is fed by two major watercourses, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, that drain waters from the Tian Shan and Pamir mountain ranges. Soviet era irrigation policies in the five Central Asian republics captured the vast majority of the water from the two river basins, leaving the Aral Sea to dry within a few decades due to the imbalance between inflow and evaporation.
As of 2020, the Aral Sea was reduced to five separate lakes that together represent less than ten percent of the original body of water.
The Drying of the Aral Sea
