Aral Sea - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

# Aral Sea

### From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Aral Sea (Kazakh: Арал Теңізі (Aral Tengizi), Uzbek Orol dengizi, Russian Аральскοе мοре) is a landlocked sea in Central Asia; it lies between Kazakhstan in the north and Karakalpakstan, an autonomous region of Uzbekistan, in the south. Since the 1960s the Aral Sea has been shrinking. The rivers that feed it (the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya) were used by the Soviet Union for irrigation. The Aral Sea is heavily polluted, largely as the result of weapons testing, industrial projects, and fertilizer runoff before and after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

There is a project to save at least the norther part of the Aral Sea. For this, a dam was built in the 1990 to stop water running off. Climate improved in the following years, and water levels rose again. However, that dam broke, and is currently being rebuilt with international funding.

Another problem was that the Island of Rebirth had been used for the testing of biological weapons until 1993. It is currently contaminated with Anthrax, the Plague, and Tularemia. Since 2001, this is no longer an island, but a peninsula.

Aral Sea around 1850 | 2004 photo of the Aral Sea (The black lines are where it was in 1850) | Aral Sea, in 1985. | Rebirth island (an island in the Aral Sea) joins the mainland (2000/2001)
North Aral Sea, comparison April 2005/2006 (showing the sea has grown) | A ship (on a now dry, and desert-like part Aral sea, showing the desertification

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Category: Geography

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