Thanks to cooperation between the Central Asian states, the ultimate demise of the Aral Sea has been prevented. This year, the Northern Aral Sea has significantly replenished its water reserves. The Northern portion of the Aral Sea has received 12.5 times more water this year than the previous year – up to 75 cubic meters per second, the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation of Kazakhstan stated in July. The Syr Darya River delivers 650 cubic meters of water per second to the Kyzylorda Oblast. “Joint work has been carried out with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In particular, approved water supply schedules are being observed,” Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Nurzhan Nurzhigitov explained.

Formerly the world’s fourth-largest lake covering 68,000 km², the destruction of the Aral Sea first dates back as far as the U.S. Civil War, when, finding his supply of American cotton under threat, the Russian Tsar decided to use the sea’s tributaries to irrigate Central Asia and create his own cotton bowl. With 1.8 million liters of water needed for every bale of cotton, the water soon began to run out.

From the 1960s onwards, the sea level began to decline rapidly due to water withdrawal from the main feeder rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya. The local population was growing, and fields needed irrigating. In 1989, the sea split into the Northern (Small) and Southern (Large) Aral reservoirs.

The former port of Zhalanash, Kazakhstan; image: TCA, Stephen M. Bland

Since independence, the rate of shoaling and desertification have continued to increase. Up until the late-1990s, the land surrounding the Aral Sea was still cotton fields; but today, it’s largely an expanse of salinized grey emptiness. The desiccation of the landscape has led to vast toxic dust-storms that ravage around 1.5 million square kilometers. Spreading nitrates and carcinogens, these storms – visible from space – used to occur once every five years, but now strike ten times a year. By 2007, the Aral had shrunk to one-tenth its original size.

In 2014, the eastern part of the Southern Lake dried up completely, and the sea’s area reached a historical low of 7,297 km². Over half a century, the volume of water had decreased 30-fold, and the sea’s salinity has risen sharply.

Nevertheless, Kazakhstan still manages to preserve the remnants of the once colossal lake; the region’s fisheries and farms continue, and rare species of birds still inhabit the lands surrounding the shoreline.

Today, most scientists say restoring the Aral Sea completely is impossible, but Kazakhstan is attempting to preserve the Northern portion, sometimes referred to as the “Small Aral Sea.” In 1993, the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFSAS) was established, which united Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan in this most challenging of tasks. At the time of IFSAS creation, the water area stood at approximately 36,000 km². Over the following decades, it continued to decline, and in 2001 Vozrozhdeniya (Renaissance) Island became connected to the mainland.

Vozrozhdeniya contains the ruins of the Soviet-era Aralsk-7 biological weapons facility. Covered in telegraph poles set one and a half kilometers apart, sensors on the island’s testing range measured the effects of smallpox, brucellosis and bubonic plague on monkeys, sheep and donkeys. Hundreds of tons of anthrax were buried here over the decades and covered only in bleach as a de-contaminant. Vacated in haste upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, its anthrax canisters were purportedly decontaminated by the U.S. for support in the ‘war on terror.’

Kazakhstan took radical action. From 2003 to 2005, stretching from the Kokaral Peninsula to the mouth of the Syr Darya, Kazakhstan built the Kokaral Dam, with a hydro-technical gate which allowed the passage of excess water to regulate the reservoir level. The dam separated the Small Aral from the Large Aral. Thanks to this, runoff from the Syr Darya accumulates in the Small Aral, meaning the water level should rise and salinity decrease. The cost of work of the project’s first phase amounted to $85.79 million, of which the World Bank provided $65.5 million.

The Kokaral Dam; image: TCA, Stephen M. Bland

Despite these efforts, in 2021 it was stated that less water was flowing into the Small Aral. Villagers and fishermen complained of further salinization and shallowing. In September 2023, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev warned regional leaders of the consequences of a potential drought at an event marking the 30th anniversary of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea.

“Central Asia’s security is threatened by global climate change, the coming period of low water levels, and shortage of irrigation. According to international experts, the temperature in our region is rising much faster than the average around the planet. This reduces the area of glaciers and the main water source in the Aral Sea basin. Their volume has decreased by 30% over the last 50 years. Analysts estimate that by 2050, droughts in Central Asia could cause damage of 1.3% of GDP per year, resulting in about 5 million internal ‘climate’ migrants,” Tokayev stated.

But, he added, IFSAS continues to fulfill its function. “During its existence, the fund has become the essential institution of regional cooperation in the issues of trans-boundary water resources sharing, and solving environmental and socioeconomic problems in the Aral Sea basin. It is difficult to overestimate the Fund’s role in ensuring Central Asia’s security, stability, and sustainable development. Moreover, IFSAS is one of the few successful regional cooperation mechanisms, demonstrating Central Asia’s subjectivity in the international arena,” the President stated.

In June of this year, the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation reported that the situation in the Small Aral Sea is improving. The water volume in the northern part of the Aral Sea has increased, and, according to the ministry, 1.1 billion cubic meters of water have entered the Small Aral since the start of the year. Today, the volume of water in the Northern Aral is 21.4 billion cubic meters.

Artesian Well, Northern Aral; image: TCA, Stephen M. Bland

“At the 86th meeting of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination, which includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, the parties agreed that 997 million cubic meters of water will enter the Northern Aral during the irrigation season, and the inflow will be at least 30 cubic meters per second. Now, the sea receives 50 cubic meters of water per second. A year ago, the inflow was six cubic meters per second,” the Ministry stated. According to official data, 75% of the Syr Darya’s flow is formed in Kyrgyzstan, 20% in Uzbekistan, and 5% in Kazakhstan.

In addition, over a million hectares of saxaul (haloxylon) shrubs will be planted on the Kazakhstani side of the Aral seabed to prevent dust storms. The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources said 544,500 hectares of forest have been planted in the past three years.

This year, there are plans to plant another 275,000 hectares. As the decimation of the Aral Sea is a global issue, the ministry in Kazakhstan works in cooperation with numerous international organizations, including the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFSAS), the World Bank, the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Forest Service of Korea, and others.