Sunday, 19 January 2014

Agriculture-Aral Sea

Location:
  • Scale= 68,000km2 (in 1964)
  • 60% lost 1964-1987
  • 90% lost by 2002
  • found between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan
  • Fed by the Syr Darya and Amu Darya (no longer fed by the sea)
Opportunities:
  • Farmer used water for cotton (irrigation)
  • Cotton (cash crop) successfully exploited
Challenges:
  • Double salt concentration 
  • Salinisation of the sea
  • Collapse of fishing industry 
  • Native organisms have died out 
  • Lowering of groundwater levels
  • Exposed sea bed (dustbowl contaminating land several hundred km inland)
What did the government do?
  • Tried to introduce new fish species (doesn't tackle root problem)
  • Cost-benefit analysis
  • Reliance on cotton (refused to stop cotton industry)
The Kokaral Dam (completed in 2005)
  • In 2003 Kazakh. government used money from oil exports to build the dam.
  • Since 2005 North Aral water level has risen by 10m.
  • Wider variety of fish returned.
  • Now over 80 fishing boats operating in the sea.
  • 2009= 2400 tonnes of fish caught
  • Thriving fishing industry attracting people back (improved local services, more investment in agriculture)
Future of the Aral Sea

South Aral:
  • Little hope of saving major part of Aral (fewer fish, more saline, more wildlife will die out)
  • Continued desertification (Local climate will become more acute with colder winters and hotter, drier summers.
North Aral:
  • 2nd Dam funded by World bank ($126 million) will bring water level back to the port of Aralsk, is still currently some 40km from the waters edge.
Future aims for aral sea basin:

1) Develop management strategies to give sustainable water use/sustainable land resource uses.
2) Improve information base (need to plan the development of water resources in the area
3) Stop/reduce deterioration of environment
4) Improve conditions (for people and animals living close to the sea)

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