After five years of joint scientific research, Chinese and Uzbek scientists have identified key factors of the drying up of the Aral Sea over the past 20 years, including climate warming and the lack of water-saving technologies on agricultural land, Xinhua reports.
The Aral Sea, located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, was once the fourth largest inland water body in the world. However, from the 1960s of the last century till the present, the sea area has shrunk almost 11 times – from 67,000 square kilometers in 1960 to only 6,000 square kilometers in 2020.
According to a new study, the expansion of agricultural land in the Aral basin is not the main reason for the continued drying of the Aral Sea. After all, as Chen Xi, director of the Research Center for Ecology and Environment of Central Asia under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, noted, since 2000, agricultural land in the Aral Sea coast has stopped expanding.
So, what is having such a detrimental effect on the Aral Sea these days?
Recent studies have revealed the following factors:
- Temperature rise
- Lack of water-saving technologies on agricultural land
- Expansion of wetlands in the middle and lower reaches
- A large amount of water storage at upstream hydroelectric power plants
Salt dust forms on the dried-up shores, which poses a serious threat to the local ecological environment and human health.
Scientists from China and Uzbekistan have put forward a roadmap for the ecological restoration of dried lake territories. They divided the Aral Sea into different zones, which will be treated with individual measures.
According to Chen, that water-saving technology is an important way to solve ecological difficulties in Central Asian countries.
“Sixty percent of Uzbekistan’s water resources are used for cotton planting. Efficient water-saving technologies can save 8 to 10 billion cubic meters of water for Uzbekistan each year, which can be used for restoration of the Aral Sea”, he told. ///nCa, 20 December 2022