Uzbekistan: Southern Aral Sea on Pace to Dry Up in About a Decade

The Uzbek part of the Aral Sea has shrunk by 80 percent over just the past three years, according to new satellite imagery provided by the European Space Agency.

By 2020, the entire southern part of the sea is projected to dry up completely, the ScienceDaily.com news website reported on July 12.

Efforts are under way to plant saline-loving shrubs and trees in the area to prevent an environmentally catastrophic dust bowl, the report added. "Each year violent sandstorms pick up at least 150,000 tons of salt and sand from the Aral [basin] and transport it across hundreds of kilometers, causing severe health problems for the local population and making regional winters colder and summers hotter," the report stated.

The northern part of the Aral Sea, located in Kazakhstan, is making a modest comeback. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Thanks to a World Bank-funded project, water levels in the northern Aral Sea have risen by an average of 4 meters since 2005.