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. A dam has increased water levels in a small part of the lake called the North Aral.
These satellite images show how humans made the Aral Sea almost ...
In the not so distant past, this harsh environment was actually the bed of one of the largest lakes in the world – the Aral Sea. Shorelone of the Aral Sea as seen over the years. Image: Philip Micklin (2016) For reasons both climatic and anthropogenic, the Aral Sea began receding in the 1960s.
Subsequently, after consultation with Aral — another of Vosoughi’s graduate advisors, who has studied social networks extensively — the three researchers decided to try the approach used in the new study: objectively identifying news stories as true or false, and charting their Twitter trajectories.
Water scarcity: The Aral Sea Wedged between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, this was once the world’s fourth-largest inland lake. But the rivers that traditionally fed it were diverted for irrigation, and climate change has intensified local water scarcity.
In Uzbekistan, for example, cotton farming used up so much water from the Aral Sea that it dried up after about 50 years. Once one of the world’s four largest lakes, the Aral Sea is now little more than desert and a few small ponds.
MSN: North Aral Sea regains a third of its water thanks to restoration efforts spearheaded by Kazakhstan
For decades the shrinking Aral Sea has been the poster child for environmental catastrophe. Behind images of rusty fishing boat shells sitting awkwardly among the sand dunes lies a story of human ...