page_title: Aral Sea
section_title: Future of South Aral Sea
hierarchical_section_title: Aral Sea / Solution / Future of South Aral Sea
caption_attribution_description: English: The Aral Sea in August 2010, taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.
context_page_description: The Aral Sea was an endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The name roughly translates as "Sea of Islands", referring to over 1,100 islands that had dotted its waters; in the Mongolic languages and Turkic language aral means "island, archipelago". The Aral Sea drainage basin encompasses Uzbekistan and parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, and Iran.
  Formerly the fourth largest lake in the world with an area of 68,000 km², the Aral Sea has been shrinking since the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects. By 1997, it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into four lakes: the North Aral Sea, the eastern and western basins of the once far larger South Aral Sea, and one smaller intermediate lake. By 2009, the southeastern lake had disappeared and the southwestern lake had retreated to a thin strip at the western edge of the former southern sea; in subsequent years, occasional water flows have led to the southeastern lake sometimes being replenished to a small degree.
context_section_description: The South Aral Sea, half of which lies in Uzbekistan, was abandoned to its fate. Most of Uzbekistan's part of the Aral Sea is completely shriveled up. Only excess water from the North Aral Sea is periodically allowed to flow into the largely dried-up South Aral Sea through a sluice in the dyke.  Discussions had been held on recreating a channel between the somewhat improved North and the desiccated South, along with uncertain wetland restoration plans throughout the region, but political will is lacking. Unlike Kazakhstan, which has partially revived its part of the Aral Sea, Uzbekistan shows no signs in abandoning the Amu Darya river to irrigate their cotton, and is moving toward oil exploration in the drying South Aral seabed.
  Attempts to mitigate the effects of desertification include planting vegetation in the newly exposed seabed; however, intermittent flooding of the eastern basin is likely to prove problematic for any development. Redirecting what little flow there is from the Amu Darya to the western basin may salvage fisheries there while relieving the flooding of the eastern basin.
caption: The Aral Sea in August 2010, with part of the eastern basin reflooded from heavy snowmelt.
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