The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission reveals us what’s left of the Aral Sea, as soon as the fourth largest lake on the earth.
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Straddling the border between Kazakhstan within the north and Uzbekistan within the south, the Aral Sea was as soon as a big inland water physique in Central Asia. In 1960, the lake coated an space of about 68 000 sq km – twice the dimensions of Belgium.
Earlier than the Nineteen Fifties, the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya rivers carried recent mountain water into this temperate oasis, located in a largely arid area. Nonetheless, within the Sixties, the rivers have been diverted to irrigate cotton fields throughout the area and since then the Aral Sea has shrunk dramatically.
By the top of the Eighties, the Aral Sea had cut up into two our bodies of water – the Massive Aral shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and a smaller virtually unconnected lake to the north, the Small Aral, in Kazakhstan. By 2000, the Massive Aral had additional cut up into two.
On this picture from 18 March 2025, we will see how the western lobe has diminished considerably, whereas the japanese lobe, nonetheless seen on this picture from 2006, has just about dried up. Because the Aral Sea evaporated, it left behind a zone of dry, salty terrain. This seems within the picture as a whitish space over the previous lakebed, now the Aralkum Desert, Earth’s youngest desert.
The retreat of the waters devastated the realm’s thriving fishing business and altered the regional microclimate. Violent sandstorms have now develop into an annual incidence, transporting tonnes of salt and sand from the dried-up lakebed throughout a whole bunch of kilometres. This causes extreme well being issues for the native inhabitants and makes regional winters colder and summers hotter.
On the northern tip of the western half of the Massive Aral, we will spot the remnant of what appeared as an emerald inexperienced heart-shaped physique of water in 2019. This water physique can also be retreating and is prone to disappear quickly.
The ice-covered waters of the Small Aral Sea may be seen within the higher a part of the picture. Whereas the lake’s total southern part is anticipated to quickly dry out fully, the Small Aral Sea is the main target of worldwide preservation efforts.
The 2 brown straight traces on the southeastern tip of Small Aral point out the Kok-Aral dike, which was constructed to stop water from flowing into the southern part of the lake and to stabilise the water stage and salinity within the northern part. Since its completion in 2005, the water stage has risen within the northern part by a median of 4 m.
The drying up of the Aral Sea is a hanging instance of long-term modifications – each pure and linked to human exercise – that may be tracked by satellites to supply knowledge to assist decision-making.
