The Aral Sea is located in Central Asia, and it is a form of a large endorheic lake. The issue surrounding the given body of water is that it has been shrinking since the 1960s, and now, it is considered almost completely dried up. It was a crucial lake in the region because many nearby communities relied on it for fishing, agriculture, and tourism (The Earth Observatory, 2022). It is reported that “as the Aral Sea has dried up, fisheries and the communities that depended on them collapsed” (The Earth Observatory, 2022, para. 4). The Soviet Union should have focused on preserving this body of water by not diverting its core rivers. The main reason is that the Aral Sea has been essential for the wellbeing and livelihood of the nearby villages, cities, and communities.
The solutions to save the sea involve using dams and restoring the Amu Darya river. The latter is challenging, but it would be the most effective way to restore the Aral Sea since it supplied the largest amount of water to the lake (Rowntree et al., 2017). For the dams, it is stated that “Kazakhstan built a dam between the northern and southern parts of the Aral Sea … separates the two water bodies and prevents flow out of the North Aral into the lower-elevation South Aral” (The Earth Observatory, 2022, para. 5). In other words, it is an attempt to protect the remaining body of water from further desiccation.
References
Rowntree, L., Lewis, M., Price, M., & Wyckoff, W. (2017). Diversity amid globalization: World regions, environment, development (7th ed.). Pearson.
The Earth Observatory. (2022). World of change: Shrinking Aral Sea.