The
Aral Sea (
Kazakh ???? ?????? Aral Teñizi;
Uzbek Orol Dengizi;
Russian ????????? ???? Aral'skoye More;
Tajik ????? ???? Bahri Aral;
Persian ?????? ?????? Daryocha-i Khorazm) is an
endorheic basin in
Central Asia; it lies between
Kazakhstan (
Aktobe and
Kyzylorda provinces) in the north and
Karakalpakstan, an autonomous region of
Uzbekistan, in the south. The name roughly translates as "Sea of Islands", referring to more than 1,500 islands of one hectare or more that once dotted its waters.
Due to Soviet redirection of the Sea's sources, the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s. There are now two smaller lakes in the Aral Basin the North Aral Sea and the western basin of the South Aral Sea. A third lake, the larger eastern basin of the South Aral Sea, dried out completely in 2009.[1]
The maximum depth of the sea is 102&_160;feet (31&_160;m).
Once the world's fourth-largest inland saline body of water with an area of 68,000&_160;km2, the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s,[2] after the rivers Amu Darya and Syr Darya that fed it were diverted by Soviet Union irrigation projects. By 2004, the sea had shrunk to 25% of its original surface area, and a nearly fivefold increase in salinity had killed most of its natural flora and fauna. By 2007 it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into three separate lakes, two of which are too salty to support fish.[3] The once prosperous fishing industry has been virtually destroyed, and former fishing towns along the original shores have become ship graveyards. With this collapse has come unemployment and economic hardship.
