Aral Sea
The Aral Sea began shrinking in the 1960s, when the Soviet Union decided that the two rivers feeding it, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, would be diverted in order to irrigate cotton and food crops in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. In 1987, due to an accelerated loss of water, the Aral Sea was split into northern and southern parts; the northern part is the current North Aral Sea.