FAQ: What Does Aral Sea Mean?

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What does Aral Sea translate to?

The name roughly translates as “Sea of Islands”, referring to over 1,100 islands that had dotted its waters. In the Mongolic and Turkic languages aral means “island, archipelago”.

What does Aral Sea mean in geography?

Ar·al Sea. (ăr′əl) An inland sea lying between southern Kazakhstan and northwest Uzbekistan. Once the fourth-largest inland body of water in the world, it has largely disappeared because of diversion of its two sources, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya.

What happened at the Aral Sea?

With rainfall composing only one-fifth of the lake’s water supply, the Aral Sea began shrinking rapidly from the 1960s. Over the course of four decades, the basin decreased to a tenth of its original size, ultimately almost splitting into a northern section on the Kazakh side and a southern section on the Uzbek side.

Where is the Aral Sea?

Mimicking the shape of a splintered number eight, the North Aral Sea – the top half of the body of water – lies in Kazakhstan. The South Aral Sea, which consist of a strip of water in the west and a dried-out basin in the east, sits in Uzbekistan.

Why is Aral Sea dry?

Beginning about 1960, the Aral Sea’s water level was systematically and drastically reduced, because of the diversion of water from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers for purposes of agricultural irrigation. The Aral Sea began to quickly shrink because of the evaporation of its now unreplenished waters.

Why is the Aral Sea important?

What is different about the Aral Sea? Once upon a time, it was the fourth biggest lake to exist. In the early 1900s, it provided communities with a range of significant ecosystem resources. This included fishing stocks and conservation of the local water and soil fertility.

Who destroyed the Aral Sea?

In October 1990 Western scientists confirmed the virtual disappearance of the Aral Sea in Soviet Central Asia, formerly the fourth largest inland sea in the world. The loss of sea water was the result of 60 years of intensive agriculture and pollution by the Soviet authorities.

Will Aral Sea come back?

During the past three decades, restoration of the Aral Sea ecosystem has focused mainly on afforestation of the drained seabed to mitigate the sandstorms that cause erosion and further degrade the fragile soils. The Aral Sea assessment and action plan will be completed by late July 2021.

What is being done to help the Aral Sea?

In 2017 the Government launched an initiative for a United Nations Multilateral Trust Fund for the Development of the Aral Sea Region and currently works to plant around two million hectares of new plantations and forests, and claim back the land from the desert.

Why is Aral Sea not a lake?

Sandwiched between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea is actually a lake, albeit a salty, terminal one. It is salty because evaporation of water from the lake surface is greater than the amount of water being replenishing through rivers flowing in. It is terminal because there is no outflowing river.

What will happen to the Aral Sea in the future?

Estimates were, as found in an article in Science dating from February 2005, that ”Within 3 years [after the Kok-Aral Dam is built], the Small Aral is expected to rise at least 3 meters and cover about 1000 square kilometers of now-dry former seabed, extending its surface by 25%”.

What animals live in the Aral Sea?

Two dozen species thrived in its waters, including caviar-rich sturgeon, pike perch, and silver carp, known locally as fat tongue. The sea spread over more than 26,000 square miles, and ships could travel 250 miles from the northern port of Aralsk, in Kazakhstan, to the southern harbor of Muynak in Uzbekistan.

What is the primary reason the Aral Sea is mostly gone?

What is the primary reason for the shrinking of the Aral Sea? Large-scale irrigation projects implemented by the Soviets in the 1950s have diverted water from the two rivers that feed the sea.

Are there fish in the Aral Sea?

At its peak in 1957, the Aral Sea produced more than 48,000 tons of fish, representing roughly 13 percent of the Soviet Union’s fish stocks. By 2016, 7,106 tons of fish was caught, with bream being the most common, followed by roach and the sought-after pike-perch.