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Aral Sea Basin Almost Completely Dry
An anonymous reader writes: In 2000, NASA began taking satellite images of the Aral Sea in central Asia, which was once the fourth-largest inland lake in the world. At that time, there was an expansive eastern basin, and smaller basins to the north and west. In images recorded just last week, we see that the eastern basin is completely gone, and the western basin just a thin strip of water. The local fishing industry has been devastated, old ship graveyards now rest on dry ground, and salt-heavy sand is being blown around the region, causing health issues.
Most of the lake's decline is attributable to human intervention: "In the 1950s, two of the region's major rivers – the Amu Darya and and the Syr Darya – were diverted by the Soviet government to provide irrigation for cotton production in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, starving the Aral. It has been diminishing ever since, with the sea level dropping 16 meters between 1960 and 1996, according to the World Bank. Water levels are believed to be down to less than 10 per cent of what they were five decades ago." Low levels of rain and snow didn't help.
Most of the lake's decline is attributable to human intervention: "In the 1950s, two of the region's major rivers – the Amu Darya and and the Syr Darya – were diverted by the Soviet government to provide irrigation for cotton production in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, starving the Aral. It has been diminishing ever since, with the sea level dropping 16 meters between 1960 and 1996, according to the World Bank. Water levels are believed to be down to less than 10 per cent of what they were five decades ago." Low levels of rain and snow didn't help.
Even the people that want to restore the lake don't argue the benefits of redirecting the water. The problem is how it's been redirected. The soviets litterally dug trenches through sand to get it where they wanted. It's not in pipes, it's not through pumps. The water travels over sand through an open air canal in the desert. Estimates are that less than 15% of it actually gets to the farm fields. If they fixed the canals they could have both the farm land and the sea.
short-sighted totalitarian government ... California is what you get when a short-sighted democratic government
Good government requires accountability. Marxism is the very definition of unaccountable government because it is designed to eliminate any and all political opposition. Thus, Marxist countries like the USSR destroy the environment with impunity. Unfortunately, California also suffers from a lack of accountability because it contains so many Latin Americans getting handouts from the government that the Democrat Party has become politically unbeatable and the radicals that control the Democrat Party are free to implement every wacked out idea that strikes their fancy. So, in the name of saving a subspecies of minnow, CA dumps millions of gallons of fresh water into the ocean every year. The combination of that, obstruction of water infrastructure projects and a natural drought has created the terrible situation that CA now finds itself in. CA's current water problems are directly attributable to environmentalists.
After all, I'm a North American, so unless I'm a huge hypocrite and also view North America as an unmitigated disaster,
The political indoctrination that you have received has obviously been successful in filling you with an irrational self-loathing. Stop the hate including the self-hatred.
I have admit that the prosperity of my nation has only been achieved by the wholesale destruction of many others (the Native Americans).
Careful estimates of pre-Columbian Amerindian populations in what is now the U.S. and Canada have shown that the population of Amerindians today is several times larger than it was before 1492. Amerindians have benefited from modern agriculture just like everyone else. Sure, the Amerindian cultures were mostly wiped-out, but that is no great loss. Amerindians had no written language, built no permanent structures other than a few shapeless burial mounds and the cliff dwelling of the American SW, didn't use the wheel and hadn't domesticated any animals except canines. They were primitive savages who lived in static societies with little or nothing to offer the far more sophisticated and advanced societies of Europe. Contrary to the crap that is taught in schools, Amerindians didn't live in harmony with nature; they lived at the mercy of nature.
There is no need for you to feel guilty about the conquest of North America. You are not responsible since there is no such thing as blood guilt and conquest is an ever present aspect of the human condition. And don't make the mistake of applying present-day morality to the context of yesteryear or the mistake of mindlessly projecting perfect virtue onto Amerindians. If the Amerindians had the population and technology, they would not have hesitated to travel the Atlantic to conquer Europe.
who's to say the Aral sea decision was a failure?
Every analysis that I have ever seen has concluded that what was done to the Aral Sea was phenomenally foolish and short-sighted. Water from the AS was used for canal transportation and irrigation. From the very start it was known that the volume of water being drained exceeded the volume feeding the Sea. The benefits were short-term. The damage is long-term.
Not to be too contrarian, but before we declare this an unmitigated disaster, shouldn't the cost of the destruction of the Aral sea be measured against the benefits of provided by the water that used to flow into it?
The soviet scientists involved with the water diversion were aware that the Aral sea would eventually dry up. In fact, the decline in sea level was observable from the very beginning. It is true the lake drying up was an intended and foreseen consequence.
However, what was unforeseen were the ecological consequences of the lake drying up, that has turned the dry lake bed into a salt desert where dust storms kicking up toxic sediments are a common occurrence. Without a large body of water to moderate the weather, nearby communities now experience hotter summers and colder winters. In effect, one desert has been traded for another.
And while diverting water for agricultural uses might be beneficial, most of the canals used for the diversion are not properly lined, experiencing significant water wastage during transport. And most of this water is being used for water-intensive crops like cotton and rice. Were good irrigation practices used, and if more suitable crops that required less water were used instead, it is likely only a fraction of the water would be needed. It also has to be kept in mind that the economic benefits agricultural irrigation has brought has to be balanced the economic loss resulting from the loss of fishery in the area,loss of tourism (some of the villages were once seaside resorts), and economic hardship resulting from the ecological changes to the landscape