By /MOOKScenic Spots ExpertJun(e)Compiled report
With the impact of greenhouse effects and other factors, the world’s climate has begun to change dramatically, and nature’s retaliation could strike at any time. Many natural environments such as islands and lakes have already started to disappear, and indirect human activities are gradually causing many natural wonders to be damaged. Located in Central Asia, spanning Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea, once the world’s fourth-largest lake, is now also vanishing into a desert.
The Aral Sea in 1985, once the world’s fourth-largest lake (Image source / Wikipedia)
The Aral Sea in 1997, seen from space as it began to shrink (Image source / Wikipedia)
Comparison map of the Aral Sea, left in 1989 and right in 2014 (Image source / Wikipedia)
In the past, farmers excessively extracted water for irrigation without restraint, and now the Aral Sea has turned into a barren wasteland. Efforts are now underway to restore the lake. After the Aral Sea dried up, it split into three remaining lakes, two of which became too salty for fish to survive. The once-busy fishing boats have also disappeared from the Aral Sea, and former port cities have declined. Vast areas of the seabed have been exposed and dried, and wind erosion has blown salt and toxic substances toward populated areas, causing serious health problems.
Stranded in the desert that was once the Aral Sea, near the Kazakh region (Image source / Wikipedia)
The Aral Sea desert has become a ship graveyard (Image source / Wikipedia)
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