Once called the Jewel of Central Asia, the Aral Sea was the third largest lake in the world, and supported a unique ecosystem, and millions of people. But after irrigation projects in the 1960s began diverting water, the Aral Sea started to shrink. Today it is almost completely gone, replaced by desert, in one of the greatest ecological catastrophes of modern times.

Sources

https://www.columbia.edu/~tmt2120/introduction.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea

https://growtheflowutah.org/2025/08/27/overview-of-the-aral-sea-disaster/

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ship_in_the_Aral_Sea,_Mo‘ynoq.jpg

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