A wet year can bring a surge of water to this inland lake in Central Asia.
Published Sep 1, 2017
Once part of the fourth-largest lake in the world, the eastern lobe of the southern Aral has dried up for the first time in modern history.
Published Sep 26, 2014
In the first half of the twentieth century, it was the world’s fourth-largest lake. By August 2009, virtually nothing remained of the largest lobe.
Published Aug 27, 2009
Though the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking over the past decade, this true-color image from August 2010 shows slight growth in the southern sea as water flowed into it from the Amu Darya for the first time since 2008.
Published Oct 30, 2010
In 1964, it was the world's fourth largest lake. Thanks to irrigation projects, now it is mostly gone.
Published Feb 24, 2012
A Soviet-era plan to turn the arid plains of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan into fertile cropland resulted in the near-total diversion of the water that once fed the Aral Sea. Prior to the scheme, two rivers—the Amudar’ya in the south and the Syrdar’ya in the north—flowed out of distant mountains and pooled in a desert basin in what is now southern Kazakhstan and northern Uzbekistan. The irrigation project began in the mid-1900s, and by 1960, the sea had already begun to dry out.
Published Aug 26, 2008
Once the world’s fourth largest lake, the rapidly shrinking Aral Sea has fragmented into four bodies of water. The Southern Aral Sea and Tsche-Bas Gulf show the most dramatic change in 2011.
Published Sep 11, 2011
Acquired March 26, 2010, this natural-color image shows a plume rising from the eastern lobe of the South Aral Sea. The dust blows toward the southeast, along the Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan border.
Published Mar 30, 2010
The eastern basin of the South Aral Sea is shallow and more prone to size fluctuations than its neighbors.
Published May 21, 2018
The sequence of images shows the dramatic changes to the Aral Sea between 1973 and 2000.
Published May 5, 2001
large dust storm blew westward from the Aral Sea in late April 2008. Dry lake bed sediments provide plentiful material to be blown by dust storms, and such sediments surround the Aral Sea.
Published Apr 29, 2008
This true-color image shows a dust storm blowing over the desiccated Southern Aral Sea in late June 2009. Dust blows over southern Kazakhstan and across Uzbekistan.
Published Jun 30, 2009
