The story of the Aral Sea’s disappearance

It once was the world’s fourth-largest lake, but it disappeared before our eyes.   This is the tragic story of the Aral Sea.

Transcript

00:00Thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you next time.

00:30It was one of the most interesting ecosystems of the world before the 60s.

00:41The area now for the one-third is now a desert area where, of course, biodiversity doesn't

00:50exist anymore and most of the species have disappeared.

01:30It was taken by engineering work, building digs, building channels that, of course, also

01:38changed the morphology of the area.

02:00When you have a sort of pumping that is so extreme, the level of the lake decreased of

03:00Also birds and many other species of animals, due to the hypersalinization of the lake,

03:09but not only, the increase of the desert created the sandstorms.

03:18This, of course, created a climate and a situation that doesn't allow the species living in the

03:29area to continue to survive.

03:48There was an increasing of poverty due to lack of water access and water security.

03:54It was an economic disaster.

04:17There was an increase of poverty due to lack of water access and lack of water security.

04:37We know that pesticides and fertilizers infiltrate in the subsoil and then reach the aquifers,

05:03the groundwater resources.

05:05And of course, drinking water is mainly derived by wells that are pumping in these aquifers.

05:33In Kazakhstan, the level of the lakes has increased and some of the species are back.

05:59But at the same time, this dam doesn't allow the flow of the water to reach the southern part of the Aral Sea.

06:29The two rivers, the Sirdaria and the Amudaria rivers, that take their source from the Indu-Kushi

06:44and the Pamir, before reaching Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, they go through Afghanistan,

06:52Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

06:55The problem is much more than only Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan management of the water.

07:00It's really a regional coordination and cooperation for the management of transboundary waters

07:05of the region, without a real sustainable management and governance of water resources

07:12and in particular, the protections of the glaciers, looking at the impact of climate

07:18change.

07:19So definitely, there will be no match future for the Aral Sea in the next 100 years.