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Aral Sea Disappearing
W33dz writes "The BBC is reporting today that the Aral Sea on the border of the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan has lost half its size and 75% of its volume in the last 15 years. The article includes some stunning pictures from both NASA and the new European Space Agency's Envisat satellite.
This seems especially poignant since the US Government is hosting a summit on a proposed International Earth Observation System in Washington this month (BBC article). The meeting is intended to defend much of the Bush Administration's environmental policy and has an amazing guest list filled with the Who's Who of US politics."
If oonly it were. The article says that it's more likely to be due to the excessive and wasteful irrigation systems in the area which take water from the rivers that supply the sea.
Stick Men
I recall watching a documentary on a Soviet-era facility dedicated to researching and developing bioweapons. As of the late '90s, there were massive stores of anthrax and smallpox buried there, and some of it was leaking.
They mentioned that the sea was shrinking, and that would make it easy for animal life to transfer the deadly pathogens to the mainland.
Or make it easier for the terrorist bad guys to get their hands on it.
I think this is a bad thing all around.
no thanks
Sir, you are lacking in the uninformed reactionary spirit that made this land so great!
Errr, not to nitpick but the Soviet governments that were responsible for the disastrous irrigation projects in Central Asia were led by Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. The current Bush administration had very little to do with it.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
If anything, the Aral Sea situation shows that these issues are not as simple as environmental extremists would like to make them out to be. Farmers need water. As the article says, their irrigation systems are not efficient, but who will pay for a new one? Perhaps the farmers should be made to pay for such a system, and maybe they should even compensate the fishermen who have lost their livelihoods. But answers that are acceptable to all sides are not so no-brainer obvious.
It's not necessarily a red herring. If the problem is that a large amount of water is evaporating, it wouldn't necessarily make it back into the watershed, but could be lost through airborne transmission.
It probably depends a lot on the air currents and geography of the region. But it's very surprising how much water can be moved through the air.
Irrigation can also move water from one watershed to another (it does not respect watershed boundaries like rivers tend to).
For a really interesting technical analysis on the Aral sea issue, check out this google cache of a paper by the Land and Water Development Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
I remember seeing stories about this back in 1985, for fuqs sake. Back then, more than half of the sea had already dissapeared because of mismanagement by the Soviet government. I've seen several referneces to it since then. If I recall correctly, that first story was from National Geographic, but that was a looong time ago, so don't hold me to that.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Have you ever seen the mouth of the Colorado river near Baja California?
In case you haven't, it's a small stream in a salt-flat. Irrigation projects siphon all of the water out.
The Soviets built massive irrigation projects that drew off of the Volga and other rivers. They were and probaly continue to grow everything from rice to cotton on land that was once parched steppe.
What ends up happening is that since you are spreading billions of cubic feet of water across hundreds or thousands of square miles, the water is used, evaporated (probaly about 75%) or added to the watertable.
Large-scale irrigation causes all sorts of problems. There has been reasearch that hypothised that the added moisture in western states increases the number of thunderstorms and forest fires in the Sierras and Rockies.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
It's very plausible.
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It's basically a matter of spreading water over a larger surface area.
eg. Leave a cup of water out, and pour another cup of water on a large baking sheet. Water on the baking sheet is exposed to more air and thus will evaporate faster.
Here are some resources that you should find interesting: (remove the space that
Ground Water Budgets
http://water.usgs.gov/pubs/circ/circ1186
50% of Maine rainfall evaporates
http://wa.water.usgs.gov/news/news.wr
water.usgs.gov contains all sorts of interesting climate information.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
"ust to clarify and emphasize why this is a big deal: Aral is not really a sea - it's a lake. A sea is a body of water that has direct exit into an ocean. A lake - doesn't connect to any ocean"
huh? It is a sea, primarily because it is salty.
The vast majority of what is called lakes do connect to the ocean: from Lake Superior to Lake Placid.
See dictionary.com concerning sea " A relatively large body of salt water completely or partially enclosed by land." This applies to the Caspian Sea as well. Lake Superior is the largest lake in the world, not the Caspian Sea.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
> The article says that it's more likely to be due to the excessive and wasteful irrigation systems in the area which take water from the rivers that supply the sea.
Doesn't our own Colorado River now disappear in the sand rather than flowing into the Gulf of California as it once did, as a result of so many people tapping its water?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This was when George W Bush was working for his dad on a secret CIA project back in 1986.
Not wanting to commit things to paper and have them get out through the Freedom of Information Act, the planning went around by word of mouth. Dick Cheney (fresh back from a mission to pollute the canals on Mars) wanted to tell Bush Jr over the phone to get rid of the CCCP (Russian acronym for USSR).
However, the phone cut off mid-conversation, and all Bush could hear Cheney say was "About Russia? I want you to get rid of the C..."
Bush took this partial instruction literally, and proceeded to eliminate the smaller of Russia's internal salt seas.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
> What does Bush or his policies have to do with a sea in Asia that started to disappear 10 years before he came to office?
Well, we tried to blame it on Clinton but couldn't make it stick because it predates him too. Can we agree on Nixon, or maybe Johnson if someone steps up to defend Nixon's honor?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
What was that again? Johnson rises to defend Dick's honor?
That, and the flow is very reduced by that lil thing we call the Hoover Dam.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
The Central US will be running out of water in the next 50 to 100 years because of irrigation. Right now, farmers from Texas to the Dakotas get their water from deep aquifers. The problem is that these aquifers were filled by meltwater from the last ice age and are no longer being replenished. Within the next 50 to 100 years, that water will be gone. Plans are already being discussed to divert the Missouri, Mississippi, and Arkansas rivers so that their waters can be used to continue irrigation in America's breadbasket. This could have devistating effects on water supplies and ecosystems downstream.
Smeghead every day of the week.
That, and the flow is very reduced by that lil thing we call the Hoover Dam.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
...compared to the 1000 miles of streams that have been buried in West Virginia. Not to mention the 15%-25% of southern West Virginia's mountains that have been leveled causing the loss of 300,000 acres of highly productive hardwood forests.
All so you can have electricity for 3 cents per kilowatt-hour.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
We're going to divert rivers. We're going to alter the natural habitats of pretty much all life on the planet. Animal species will go extinct (unless we take the time to specifically preserve each and every one). We're going to change the mixture of gases in the air...
At some point, everyone is going to have to come to grips with this. The Earth can't support this many people and still exist in it's "Natural" state. The hard part is not screwing it totally up and ending up with a toxic environment.
Eventually, the land's all going to be either populated area (city / suburb), agricultural, or a managed wildlife "park".
> Is the irrigation surrounding the rivers taking the water out of the sea's watershed? Seems unlikely. The water would just eventually run back into the river and the sea.
No, much irrigation water is lost to evaporation or to incorporation into the crops.
Remember that crops, like most other life-forms, are mostly water. So for those little seeds turn into railcar-loads of consumables, all that water has to come from somewhere. Irrigation converts flowing water into money.
Also, some kinds of irrigation are extremely wasteful in terms of evaporation. Next time you drive through Texas under a blazing sun and see all those endless acres of rice shoots submerged under 6" of water, ask yourself what the evaporation rate must be. The lakes behind big dams also greatly increase the evaporation rate in a drainage system.
And though what goes up eventually comes down, it might come down half a continent away.
> I mean, how is water leaking from a poorly-built irrigation system different from the rain that falls right next to it and feeds the rivers and the sea to begin with?
In general terms, it is distributed differently, which means it can behave differently w.r.t. evaporation etc.
To make up an illustrative example, suppose you water your lawn to a total of 10" over 10 months, just a little bit every night. Not much runs off, right? But if you get a 10" rain over a couple of days it stacks up faster than it can be absorbed or evaporate, so most of it runs downhill into streams that feed the sea.
Surely that's not precisely what's happening in Central Asia, but it should call attention to the fact that the way water is distributed in space and time can have a big effect on where it ends up.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
How did they make the desert bloom?
The most important innovation in coping with scarce water supplies has been drip irrigation. This method of irrigation applies water and nutrients directly to the root of the plant at a controlled rate. See the drip irrigation pipelines. With traditional irrigation, most of the water evaporates from the ditch and is wasted. Drip irrigation uses less water, works with saline water, requires less fertilizer, and produces more crops.
It was invented in 1965 and has been used all over the world. If those former Soviet republics aren't using it, I suspect the reason is that they don't think they can afford to pay for the equipment. I would say that perhaps they can't afford not to pay for it.
You think wars for oil are bad?
Wait until there are wars for water.
People can live without oil. They may not want to (what would happen to the US without oil?), but they can. Water, however, is a different story.
I've seen an incredible number of stories about water, water shortages, fights over water rights and irrigation, and such in the past year. As the population of the Earth continues to rise, so does the demand for water. Many of the water supplies currently being used are already being used faster than they can replenish - and they're only going to get more use.
Eventually areas are going to start having serious water shortages.
The most wasteful country in the world in terms of water? No suprise, the US. The combination of all the endless golf courses, which is the #1 use of water in the US IIRC, and all those suburban laws, especially in areas they're not supposed to be growing such as the Southwest, and incredible amounts of water are being taken from rivers and aquifers for pretty silly purposes.
I wonder how long until serious money starts being spent on how to make cost efficient desalinization of ocean water, and better pumping to get the water from coasts to inland. Because there aren't going to be enough sources elsewhere to supply all the water needs at the rate things are going.
So much water on the planet, and still there seems to not be enough...
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
The Aral sea used to be the 4th largest lake in the world. (Quick quiz: name the top 3.) It's now the 12th largest. (Slower quiz: name the intervening 8.)
Not only has it lost half its surface area since 1985, it seems to have lost two thirds since 1960. outlines are interesting. I wonder what it's like on that island that's almost a peninsula.
And while this has little to do with global warming, it's a prescient example of significant human-caused environmental change.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
The Aral Sea used to be considered freshwater (the salt content was low enough to make the water drinkable) but because of its realitively recent reduction in size, the salt has become concentrated, turning the sea from fresh to salt water.
Ummmmmm.... aren't you being a little 'generous' there with your euphemisms? You know, calling the Hoover Dam an "irrigation project"?
Yes, large-scale irrigation DOES have effects on the surrounding environment. Building a gigantic fucking wall across a river bed does too.
If you wanted to give an example of out-of-control irrigation drying up a river, why didn't you pick one that didn't have a $175 million dollar government project designed to accomplish that very task??
Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all the unhappy people.
Nevada's share of the Colorado River water is 1% set in the 1930's. Nevada has never used its entire allotment -- inefficient irrigation of California's Imperial Valley has been using (wasting) the excess. Nevada (and the Las Vegas Valley) has been experiencing the greatest rate of population increase of anywhere in the US. As Nevada's population grows, the allocation must be changed.
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As for the "wasting of water" by the casinos, there is an aquifer (underground river) running under the Las Vegas strip. The aquifer water is quite hard and not very good for drinking.
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Las Vegas means "The Meadows" and was settled because of its natural springs and underground water, a green oasis in the middle of the Mohave Desert.
<p>
Next time, learn the facts before you start blathering.
Having written the oringal post, I need to clarify that I was only pointing out the irony of Mr. Bush hosting an environmental summitt while his government's policies are so obviously ambivalent to the environment. Remember, this is the man who refused to even consider the Kyoto treaty and has opened up MILLIONS of acres of federal land to oil and timber companies. He and many in his administration are ex-oil executives. They made their livelihoods in petrochemicals and are not going to stop now. This is not saying that he is evil. . .it is saying that we need to pay attention to what he does not what he says.
We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated.
In a moving river, the water shallow and warmed by the sun, but in a large resevoir, it get's cold. The river water temp is therefore much colder downstream of the dam which screws with the wildlife.
Too bad Mexico can't sue the US over taking all the water before it gets to the ocean though...
Eat at Joe's.
Though now, I bet if you lived next to the stinky rotten fish and brine shrimp salt lake, you couldn't wait for it to go away. I wonder who owns the land after a lake dries up?
Eat at Joe's.
There's a long section in the Economist about two weeks ago on the Central Asian Republics with one article that talks about the politics of water there. The Aral Sea is drying up because the irrigations systems of the countries along the rivers that feed it are horrendously inefficient, and because the water system as a whole in the region is poorly managed. Unfortunately, with one megalomaniacal ruler in Turkmenistan, and a whole host of other political solipsists in the region, this isn't likely to change in the near future.