What Government Agency Is Responsible For The Aral Sea?

What government agency is responsible for the Aral Sea? Soviet government

What specifically caused the Aral Sea disaster?

The ecosystem of the Aral Sea was destroyed mainly as a result of the

increased salinity as well as the testing of weapons and other fertilizer run offs

. The salinity of the water in the Aral sea was around 376 g/l by 1990 compared to the 35 g/l salinity of ordinary seawater.

What did the Soviet Union do to the Aral Sea?

The Aral Sea in the Soviet Union, formerly the world's fourth largest lake in area, is disappearing.

Between 1960 and 1987, its level dropped nearly 13 meters, and its area decreased by 40 percent

. Recession has resulted from reduced inflow caused primarily by withdrawals of water for irrigation.

Who destroyed the Aral Sea?

In October 1990 Western scientists confirmed the virtual disappearance of the Aral Sea in Soviet Central Asia, formerly the fourth largest inland sea in the world. The loss of sea water was the result of 60 years of intensive agriculture and pollution by

the Soviet authorities

.

What has been done to remedy the Aral Sea disaster?

The North Aral Sea is recovering thanks to the $86 million Syr Darya Control and Northern Aral Sea project

, funded by the Kazakh government and the World Bank. The project focused on dike repairs and construction of a massive new dam, Kokaral, splitting the North and South Aral Sea.

By 2005

the World Bank and the government of Kazakhstan had designed and built a permanent eight-mile (13-kilometer) dam intended to raise the North Aral by about 13 feet (four meters)

, several feet shy of the level needed to refill Aralsk's harbor, but deep enough to drop salinity and allow native fish to repopulate …

The irrigation of the cotton fields from the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya rivers

, contributed a great deal to the disappearance of the Aral Sea to more than half of its original size. As a result, more than 40,000 sq km of the heavily saline seabed are now exposed, and is now being blown out by frequent winds.

The Aral Sea was once one of the largest terminal lakes located in Central Asia. Its most recent desiccation began in the 1960s due to the

expansion of irrigation the caused the draining of its two tributary rivers

.

By establishing a program to promote agriculture and especially that of cotton

, Soviet government led by Khrouchtchev in the 1950s deliberately deprived the Aral Sea of its two main sources of water income, which almost immediately led to less water arriving to the sea.

The Dalai Lama serves as the

Spiritual Leader for his people, providing guidance to Tibetan Buddhists

. He no longer serves as Tibet's political leader, however.

Intensive irrigation of cotton plantations in the deserts of the western Soviet Union

prevented water reaching the Aral Sea, leading to the drastically low levels we see today. This in turn meant the highly-salty waters killed off many plants and animals.

Joe Myers. The Aral Sea was once the world's fourth-largest lake, but an irrigation project drained nearly all the water. The consequences include the

loss of a fishing industry, salt-laden dust affecting crops and human health, and an altered climate

.

In October 1990 Western scientists confirmed the virtual disappearance of the Aral Sea in Soviet Central Asia, formerly the fourth largest inland sea in the world. The loss of sea water was the result of 60 years of intensive agriculture and pollution by

the Soviet authorities

.

The Soviet government decided in the 1960s to divert those rivers

so that they could irrigate the desert region surrounding the Sea in order to favor agriculture rather than supply the Aral Sea basin

.