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
The eastern basin of the South Aral Sea is shallow and more prone to size fluctuations than its neighbors.
Published May 21, 2018
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
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
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
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
In 1964, it was the world's fourth largest lake. Thanks to irrigation projects, now it is mostly gone.
Published Feb 24, 2012
The North Aral Sea owes its rebirth to the Kok-Aral Dam, an $85.8 million project bolstered by a loan from the World Bank. The dam separates the North Aral Sea from its saltier and more polluted southern half. In early 2006, the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan announced that the Aral Sea had shown dramatic recovery in just months, rather than the five to ten years originally predicted.
Published May 4, 2007
The sequence of images shows the dramatic changes to the Aral Sea between 1973 and 2000.
Published May 5, 2001
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
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