Aral Sea
1989 and 2008
Location	Kazakhstan,  Uzbekistan, Central Asia
Coordinates	45°N 60°E / 45°N 60°E / 45; 60Coordinates: 45°N 60°E / 45°N 60°E / 45; 60
Lake type	endorheic, natural lake, reservoir (North)
Primary inflows	North: Syr Darya South: groundwater only (previously the Amu Darya)
Catchment area	1,549,000 km2 (598,100 sq mi)
Basin countries	Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan
Surface area	17,160 km2 (6,626 sq mi) (2004, four lakes) 28,687 km2 (11,076 sq mi) (1998, two lakes) 68,000 km2 (26,300 sq mi) (1960, one lake) North: 3,300 km2 (1,270 sq mi) (2008) South: 3,500 km2 (1,350 sq mi) (2005)
Average depth	North: 8.7 m (29 ft) (2007) South: 14–15 m (46–49 ft)(2005)
Max. depth	North: 42 m (138 ft) (2008)[1] 18 m (59 ft) (2007) 30 m (98 ft) (2003) South: 37–40 m (121–131 ft) (2005) 102 m (335 ft) (1989)
Water volume	North: 27 km3 (6 cu mi) (2007)
Surface elevation	North: 42 m (138 ft) (2007) South: 29 m (95 ft) (2007) 53.4 m (175 ft) (1960)[2]
Settlements	(Aral)

The Aral Sea (Kazakh: Арал Теңізі Aral Teñizi; Uzbek: Orol Dengizi; Russian: Аральскοе Мοре Aral'skoye More; Tajik: Баҳри Арал Bakhri Aral; Persian: ‎دریاچه خوارزم Daryâche-ye Khârazm) was a lake that lay between Kazakhstan (Aktobe and Kyzylorda provinces) in the north and Karakalpakstan, an autonomous region of Uzbekistan, in the south. The name roughly translates as "Sea of Islands", referring to more than 1,534 islands that once dotted its waters; in Old Turkic "aral" is island and thicket.^[3]

Formerly one of the four largest lakes in the world with an area of 68,000 square kilometres (26,300 sq mi), the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects. By 2007, it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into four lakes – the North Aral Sea, the eastern and western basins of the once far larger South Aral Sea and one smaller lake between North and South Aral Seas.^[4] By 2009, the southeastern lake had disappeared and the southwestern lake retreated to a thin strip at the extreme west of the former southern sea.^[5] The maximum depth of the North Aral Sea is 42 m (138 ft) (as of 2008).^[1]

The shrinking of the Aral Sea has been called "one of the planet's worst environmental disasters".^[6] The region's once prosperous fishing industry has been essentially destroyed, bringing unemployment and economic hardship. The Aral Sea region is also heavily polluted, with consequent serious public health problems. The retreat of the sea has reportedly also caused local climate change, with summers becoming hotter and drier, and winters colder and longer.^[7]

In an ongoing effort in Kazakhstan to save and replenish the North Aral Sea, a dam project was completed in 2005; in 2008, the water level in this lake had risen by 24 m (79 ft) from its lowest level in 2007.^{[citation needed][8]} Salinity has dropped, and fish are again found in sufficient numbers for some fishing to be viable.^{[citation needed]} However, the outlook for the remnants of the South Aral Sea remains bleak.

History[link]

Early Russian presence[link]

Russian military presence on the Sea of Aral started in 1847, with the founding of Raimsk, which was soon renamed Aralsk, near the mouth of the Syr Darya. Soon, the Imperial Russian Navy started deploying its vessels on the sea. Owing to the Aral Sea basin not being connected to other bodies of water, the vessels had to be disassembled in Orenburg on the Ural River, shipped overland to Aralsk (presumably by a camel caravan), and then reassembled. The first two ships, assembled in 1847, were the two-masted schooners named Nikolai and Mikhail. The former was a warship; the latter a merchant vessel meant to serve for the establishment of the fisheries on the great lake. In 1848, these two vessels surveyed the northern part of the sea. In the same year, a larger warship, the Constantine, was assembled, as well. Commanded by Lt. Alexey Butakov (Алексей Бутаков), the Constantine completed the survey of the entire Aral Sea over the next two years.^[9] The exiled Ukrainian poet and painter Taras Shevchenko participated in the expedition, and painted a number of sketches of the Aral Sea coast.^[10]

For the navigation season of 1851, two newly built steamers arrived from Sweden, again via caravan from Orenburg. As the geological surveys had found no coal deposits in the area, the Military Governor-General of Orenburg Vasily Perovsky ordered "as large as possible supply" of saxaul (a desert shrub, akin to the creosote bush) to be collected in Aralsk for use by the new steamers. Unfortunately, saxaul wood did not turn out a very suitable fuel, and in the later years the Aral Flotilla was provisioned, at substantial cost, by Donets coal.^[9]

• 

  The map of Aral Sea of 1853 published for the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society in London.

• 

  First Russian boats on the Aral Sea, sketch by Taras Shevchenko, 1848.

• 

  Map: lake boundaries c. 1960 with present-day political boundaries - countries with any land draining into the lake are in yellow.

• 

  Ships of Imperial Russian Navy's Aral Flotilla in the 1850s.

Irrigation canals[link]

Satellite images show the changing water levels in the Aral Sea from 2000 through 2011.

In the early 1960s,^[11] the Soviet government decided the two rivers that fed the Aral Sea, the Amu Darya in the south and the Syr Darya in the northeast, would be diverted to irrigate the desert, in an attempt to grow rice, melons, cereals, and cotton.

This was part of the Soviet plan for cotton, or "white gold", to become a major export. This eventually succeeded, and today Uzbekistan is one of the world's largest exporters of cotton.^[12]

The construction of irrigation canals began on a large scale in the 1940s. Many of the canals were poorly built, allowing water to leak or evaporate. From the Qaraqum Canal, the largest in Central Asia, perhaps 30 to 75% of the water went to waste. Today, only 12% of Uzbekistan's irrigation canal length is waterproofed.

Of the 47, 750 km of interfarm irrigation channels in the basin, only 28% have antifiltration linings. Only 77% of farm intakes have flow gauges, and of the 268, 500 km of on-farm channels, only 21% have antifiltration linings, which retain on average 15% more water than unlined channels.^[13]

By 1960, between 20 and 60 cubic kilometres (4.8 and 14 cu mi) of water were going each year to the land instead of the sea. Most of the sea's water supply had been diverted, and in the 1960s, the Aral Sea began to shrink. From 1961 to 1970, the Aral's sea level fell at an average of 20 cm (7.9 in) a year; in the 1970s, the average rate nearly tripled to 50–60 centimetres (20–24 in) per year, and by the 1980s it continued to drop, now with a mean of 80–90 centimetres (31–35 in) each year. The rate of water usage for irrigation continued to increase: the amount of water taken from the rivers doubled between 1960 and 2000, and cotton production nearly doubled in the same period.

The disappearance of the lake was no surprise to the Soviets; they expected it to happen long before. As early as in 1964, Aleksandr Asarin at the Hydroproject Institute pointed out that the lake was doomed, explaining "It was part of the five-year plans, approved by the council of ministers and the Politburo. Nobody on a lower level would dare to say a word contradicting those plans, even if it was the fate of the Aral Sea."^[14]

The reaction to the predictions varied. Some Soviet experts apparently considered the Aral to be "nature's error", and a Soviet engineer said in 1968, "it is obvious to everyone that the evaporation of the Aral Sea is inevitable."^[15] On the other hand, starting in the 1960s, a large scale project was proposed to redirect part of the flow of the rivers of the Ob basin to Central Asia over a gigantic canal system. Refilling of the Aral Sea was considered as one of the project's main goals. However, due to its staggering costs and the negative public opinion in Russia proper, the federal authorities abandoned the project by 1986.^[16]

From 1960 to 1998, the sea's surface area shrank by approximately 60%, and its volume by 80%. In 1960, the Aral Sea had been the world's fourth-largest lake, with an area of approximately 68,000 square kilometres (26,000 sq mi) and a volume of 1,100 cubic kilometres (260 cu mi); by 1998, it had dropped to 28,687 square kilometres (11,076 sq mi), and eighth-largest. The amount of water it had lost is the equivalent of completely draining Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Over the same time period, its salinity increased from about 10 g/L to about 45 g/L.

In 1987, the continuing shrinkage split the lake into two separate bodies of water, the North Aral Sea (the Lesser Sea, or Small Aral Sea) and the South Aral Sea (the Greater Sea, or Large Aral Sea).

In 1991, Uzbekistan gained independence from the Soviet Union. Craig Murray, a UK ambassador to Uzbekistan in 2002, described the independence as a way for Islam Karimov to consolidate his power rather than a move away from a Soviet-style economy and philosophy towards exploitation of the land. Murray attributes the shrinkage of the Aral Sea in the 1990s to Karimov's cotton policy. The government maintained a massive irrigation system which Murray described as massively wasteful, with most of the water being lost through evaporation before reaching the cotton. Crop rotation was not used, and the depleted soil and monoculture required massive quantities of pesticides and fertilizer. The runoff from the fields washed these chemicals into the shrinking Sea, creating severe pollution and health problems. Murray compared the system to the slavery system in the pre-civil war United States; forced labor was used, and profits were siphoned off by the powerful and well connected. Murray contrasts this to Kazakhstan, in which the cotton industry had been privatized.^[17]

By summer 2003, the South Aral Sea was vanishing faster than predicted. In the deepest parts of the sea, the bottom waters were saltier than the top, and not mixing. Thus, only the top of the sea was heated in the summer, and it evaporated faster than would otherwise be expected. In 2003, the South Aral further divided into eastern and western basins.

In 2004, the Aral Sea's surface area was only 17,160 km² (6,630 sq mi), 25% of its original size, and a nearly fivefold increase in salinity had killed most of its natural flora and fauna. By 2007, the sea's area had further shrunk to 10% of its original size, and the salinity of the remains of the South Aral had increased to levels in excess of 100 g/L.^[4] (By comparison, the salinity of ordinary seawater is typically around 35 g/L; the Dead Sea's salinity varies between 300 and 350 g/L.) The decline of the North Aral has now been partially reversed following construction of a dam (see below), but the remnants of the South Aral continue to disappear and its drastic shrinkage has created the Aralkum, a desert on the former lake bed.

The inflow of groundwater discharge into the South Aral Sea will not in itself be able to stop the desiccation.^{[citation needed]} This inflow of about 4 cubic kilometres (0.96 cu mi) per year is larger than previously estimated. This groundwater originates in the Pamirs and Tian Shan mountains and finds its way through geological layers to a fracture zone at the bottom of the Aral.

• 

  The shrinking of the Aral Sea.

• 

  Aral Sea from space, August 1985

• AralSea(1997) NASA STS085-503-119.jpg

  Aral Sea from space, 1997

• 

  Aral Sea from space, August 2009

Impact on environment, economy and public health[link]

The ecosystems of the Aral Sea and the river deltas feeding into it have been nearly destroyed, not least because of the much higher salinity. The receding sea has left huge plains covered with salt and toxic chemicals – the results of weapons testing, industrial projects, pesticides and fertilizer runoff – which are picked up and carried away by the wind as toxic dust and spread to the surrounding area. The land around the Aral Sea is heavily polluted, and the people living in the area are suffering from a lack of fresh water and health problems, including high rates of certain forms of cancer and lung diseases. Respiratory illnesses, including tuberculosis (most of which is drug resistant) and cancer, digestive disorders, anaemia, and infectious diseases are common ailments in the region. Liver, kidney and eye problems can also be attributed to the toxic dust storms. Health concerns associated with the region are a cause for an unusually high fatality rate amongst vulnerable parts of the population. There is a high child mortality rate of 75 in every 1,000 newborns and maternity death of 12 in every 1,000 women.^[18] Crops in the region are destroyed by salt being deposited onto the land. Vast salt plains exposed by the shrinking Aral have produced dust storms, making regional winters colder and summers hotter.^{[19][20][21][22]}

The Aral Sea fishing industry, which in its heyday had employed some 40,000 and reportedly produced one-sixth of the Soviet Union's entire fish catch, has been devastated, and former fishing towns along the original shores have become ship graveyards. The town of Moynaq in Uzbekistan had a thriving harbor and fishing industry that employed approximately 30,000 people;^[23] now it lies miles from the shore. Fishing boats lie scattered on the dry land that was once covered by water; many have been there for 20 years. The only significant fishing company left in the area has its fish shipped from the Baltic Sea, thousands of kilometers away.

Also destroyed is the muskrat trapping industry in the deltas of Amu Darya and Syr Darya, which used to yield as many as 500,000 muskrat pelts a year.^[14]

The overall cost of the damage to the region has been estimated at 35-40 billion roubles (£800 million).^[24]

• 

  Two abandoned ships, near Aral, Kazakhstan.

• 

  Aral Sea dust storm, March 2010.

• 

  Abandoned ship near Aral, Kazakhstan.

• 

  A former harbor in the city of Aral, Kazakhstan.

Possible environmental solutions[link]

Many different solutions to the different problems have been suggested over the years, varying in feasibility and cost, including:

• Improving the quality of irrigation canals
• Installing desalination plants
• Charging farmers to use the water from the rivers
• Using alternative cotton species that require less water^[25]
• Using fewer chemicals on the cotton
• Moving farming away from cotton
• Installing dams to fill the Aral Sea
• Redirecting water from the Volga, Ob and Irtysh Rivers to restore the Aral Sea to its former size in 20–30 years at a cost of US$30–50 billion^[26]
• Pumping sea water into the Aral Sea from the Caspian Sea via a pipeline, and diluting with freshwater from local catchment areas^[27]

In January 1994, the countries of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan signed a deal to pledge 1% of their budgets to helping the sea recover.

In March 2000, UNESCO presented their "Water-related vision for the Aral Sea basin for the year 2025" at the second World Water Forum in The Hague. This document was criticized for setting unrealistic goals, and also for giving insufficient attention to the interests of the area immediately around the former lakesite, implicitly giving up on the Aral Sea and the people living on the Uzbek side of the lake.^[28]

By 2006, the World Bank's restoration projects, especially in the North Aral, were giving rise to some unexpected, tentative relief in what had been an extremely pessimistic picture.^[29]

SDPI-Islamabad Initiative on Saving and Rehabilitation of Aral Sea[link]

This article appears to be written like an advertisement. Please help improve it by rewriting promotional content from a neutral point of view and removing any inappropriate external links. (September 2011)

An Islamabad-based think tank, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SPDI [2]) has established a working group on saving the Aral Sea which will focus only on transboundary water management and the environmental, economic and energy issues of Central Asia.^[30] Based in Pakistan, SDPI performs research on sustainable development issues and provides information for concerned individuals and institutions. The mandate of the working group is to evaluate the shrinking of the Aral Sea, a phenomenon to have simultaneous impacts on the region’s economic and environmental stability. The ecological consequences of the shrinking Aral Sea will not respect any political boundaries and are bound to adversely affect the region.

Invoking the issue of Aral Sea is an endeavor to highlight the need for equitable distribution of water resources based on international laws and best practices.

Additionally, the urgent need to rehabilitate/refill the Aral Sea is crucial for the stabilization of the regional and global climate, in addition to maintaining peace and security in Central Asia.

The need for a working group on the subject was also reinforced after the devastating flood in Pakistan when a westerly weather system collided with the monsoon weather system during the last week of July 2010, causing unprecedented flash floods in Pakistan. The technical part of the Working Group will make assessments of the state of environment in Central Asia and plausible impacts on climate of Pakistan and region as whole.

Aral Sea Basin program[link]

The future of the Aral Sea, and the responsibility for its survival are now in the hands of the five countries: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. In 1994 they adopted the ASBP (Aral Sea Basin Program).^[24] The Program’s four objectives are:

• To stabilize the environment of the Aral Sea Basin
• To rehabilitate the disaster area around the sea
• To improve the management of the international waters of the Aral Sea Basin
• To build the capacity of institutions at the regional and national level to advance the program’s aims

ASBP: Phases One and Two[link]

The first phase of the plan effectively began with the first involvement from the World Bank in 1992, and was in operation until 1997. It was ineffectual for a number of reasons, but mainly because it was focused on improving directly the land around the Aral Sea, whilst not intervening in the water usage upstream. There was considerable concern amongst the Central Asian governments, who realised the importance of the Aral Sea in the ecosystem and the economy of Central Asia, and they were prepared to cooperate, but they found it difficult to implement the procedures of the plan.

This is due in part to a lack of co-operation between the affected people. The water flowing into the Aral Sea has long been considered an important commodity, and trade agreements have been made to supply the downstream communities with water in the spring and summer months for irrigation. In return, they supply the upstream countries with fuel during the winter, instead of storing water during the warm months for hydroelectric purposes in winter. However, very few legal obligations are binding these contracts, particularly on an international stage.

Phase Two of the Aral Sea Basin program followed in 1998 and ran for five years. The main shortcomings of phase two were due to its lack of integration with the local communities involved. The scheme was drawn up by the World Bank, government representatives and various technical experts, without consulting those who would be affected. An example of this was the public awareness initiatives, which were seen as propagandist attempts by people with little care or understanding of their situation. These failures have led to the introduction of a new plan, funded by a number of institutions, including the five countries involved and the World Bank.

ASBP: Phase Three[link]

In 1997, a new plan was conceived which would continue with the previous restoration efforts of the Aral Sea. The main aims of this phase are to improve the irrigation systems currently in place, whilst targeting water management at a local level. The largest project in this phase is the North Aral Sea Project, a direct effort to recover the northern region of the Aral Sea. The North Aral Sea Project’s main initiative is the construction of a dam across the Berg Strait, a deep channel which connects the North Aral Sea to the South Aral Sea. The Kok-Aral Dam is eight miles long and has capacity for over 29 cubic kilometres of water to be stored in the North Aral Sea, whilst allowing excess to overflow into the South Aral Sea.

North Aral Sea restoration work[link]

Comparison of the North Aral Sea before (below) and after (above) the construction of Dike Kokaral completed in 2005.

Work is being done to restore in part the North Aral Sea. Irrigation works on the Syr Darya have been repaired and improved to increase its water flow, and in October 2003, the Kazakh government announced a plan to build Dike Kokaral, a concrete dam separating the two halves of the Aral Sea. Work on this dam was completed in August 2005; since then, the water level of the North Aral has risen, and its salinity has decreased. As of 2006, some recovery of sea level has been recorded, sooner than expected.^[31] "The dam has caused the small Aral's sea level to rise swiftly to 38 m (125 ft), from a low of less than 30 m (98 ft), with 42 m (138 ft) considered the level of viability."^[32]

Economically significant stocks of fish have returned, and observers who had written off the North Aral Sea as an environmental disaster were surprised by unexpected reports that in 2006, its returning waters were already partly reviving the fishing industry and producing catches for export as far as Ukraine. The restoration reportedly gave rise to long-absent rain clouds and possible microclimate changes, bringing tentative hope to an agricultural sector swallowed by a regional dustbowl, and some expansion of the shrunken sea.^[33]

"The sea, which had receded almost 100 km (62 mi) south of the port-city of Aral[sk], is now a mere 25 km (16 mi) away." The Kazakh Foreign Ministry stated that “The North Aral Sea's surface increased from 2,550 square kilometers (980 sq mi) in 2003 to 3,300 square kilometers (1,300 sq mi) in 2008. The sea's depth increased from 30 meters (98 ft) in 2003 to 42 meters (138 ft) in 2008.” ^[1] Now, a second dam is to be built based on a World Bank loan to Kazakhstan, with the start of construction slated for 2009, to further expand the shrunken Northern Aral,^[34] eventually reducing the distance to Aralsk to only 6 km (3.7 mi). Then, it was planned to build a canal spanning the last 6 km, to reconnect the withered former port of Aralsk with the sea.^[35]

Future of South Aral Sea[link]

The Aral Sea in August 2010, with part of the eastern basin reflooded from heavy snowmelt.

The Aral Sea in September 2011, the west basin has gained some water, and the east basin and North Aral Sea have lost water.

The South Aral Sea, which lies in poorer Uzbekistan, was largely abandoned to its fate. Only excess water from the North Aral Sea is now periodically allowed to flow into the largely dried-up South Aral Sea through a sluice in the dike.^[36] Discussions had been held on recreating a channel between the somewhat improved North and the desiccated South, along with uncertain wetland restoration plans throughout the region, but political will is lacking.^[31] Uzbekistan shows no interest in abandoning the Amu Darya river as an abundant source of cotton irrigation, and instead is moving toward oil exploration in the drying South Aral seabed.^[35]

Attempts to mitigate the effects of desertification include planting vegetation in the newly exposed seabed; however, intermittent flooding of the eastern basin is likely to prove problematic for any development. Redirecting what little flow there is from Amu Darya to the western basin may salvage fisheries there while relieving the flooding of the eastern basin.^[37]

Institutional bodies[link]

The Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia (ICWC) was formed on February 18, 1992 to formally unite the five Central Asian countries in the hopes of solving environmental as well as socioeconomic problems in the Aral Sea region. These five states are the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Republic of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan. The River Basin Organizations (the BVOs) of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers were institutions called upon by the ICWC to help manage water resources. According to the ICWC, the main objectives of the body are:

• River basin management
• Water allocation without conflict
• Organization of water conservation on transboundary water courses
• Interaction with hydrometeorological services of the countries on flow forecast and account
• Introduction of automation into head structures
• Regular work on ICWC and its bodies' activity advancement
• Interstate agreements preparation
• International relations
• Scientific research
• Training

The International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS) was developed on March 23, 1993 by the ICWC to raise funds for the projects under Aral Sea Basin programs. The IFAS was meant to finance programs to save the sea and improve on environmental issues associated with the basin’s drying. This program has had some success with joint summits of the countries involved and finding funding from the World Bank, to implement projects; however, it faces many challenges, such as enforcement and slowing progress. ^[38]

Vozrozhdeniya[link]

“Rebirth” Island joins the mainland in mid-2001.

Vozrozhdeniya, also known as "Rebirth Island", is a former island of the Aral Sea or South Aral Sea. Due to the ongoing shrinkage of the Aral, it became first a peninsula in mid-2001 and finally part of the mainland.^[39] Since the disappearance of the Southeast Aral in 2008, Vozrozhdeniya effectively no longer exists as a distinct geographical feature. The area is now shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

In 1948, a top-secret Soviet bioweapons laboratory was established on the island in the center of the Aral Sea which is now disputed territory between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The exact history, functions and current status of this facility have not yet been disclosed. The base was abandoned in 1992 following the disintegration of the Soviet Union the previous year. Scientific expeditions proved this had been a site for production, testing and later dumping of pathogenic weapons. In 2002, through a project organized by the United States and with Uzbekistan's assistance, 10 anthrax burial sites were decontaminated. According to the Kazakh Scientific Center for Quarantine and Zoonotic Infections, all burial sites of anthrax were decontaminated.^[40]

Oil and gas exploration[link]

Ergash Shaismatov, the Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan, announced on August 30, 2006, that the Uzbek government and an international consortium consisting of state-run Uzbekneftegaz, LUKoil Overseas, Petronas, Korea National Oil Corporation, and China National Petroleum Corporation signed a production-sharing agreement to explore and develop oil and gas fields in the Aral Sea, saying, "The Aral Sea is largely unknown, but it holds a lot of promise in terms of finding oil and gas. There is risk, of course, but we believe in the success of this unique project." The consortium was created in September 2005.^[41]

As of June 1, 2010, 500,000 cubic meters of gas had been extracted from the region at a depth of 3 km.^[42]

Movies[link]

The plight of the Aral coast was portrayed in the 1989 film Psy ("Dogs") by Soviet director Dmitry Svetozarov.^[43] The film was shot on location in an actual ghost town, showing scenes of abandoned buildings and scattered vessels.

In 2000, the MirrorMundo foundation produced a documentary film called Delta Blues about the problems arising from the drying up of the sea.^[44]

In June 2007, BBC World broadcast a documentary called Back From The Brink? made by Borna Alikhani and Guy Creasey that showed some of the changes in the region since the introduction of the Aklak Dam.

Literature[link]

Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had
In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere,
A foiled circuitous wanderer: — till at last
The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide
His luminous home of waters opens, bright
And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea

— Matthew Arnold, Sohrab and Rustum

See also[link]

• Draining of the Mesopotamian marshes - a similar water diversion project in Iraq
• The Sistan Basin - a large wetland ecosystem in Nimroz Province of Afghanistan and Sistan wa Baluchistan Province of Iran on the verge of collapse, further aggravating the violence in Afghanistan
• The Sudd - a large marshland in Africa, site of another planned large-scale draining project

Other lakes suffering from drying because of irrigation projects[link]

• Dead Sea
• Salton Sea
• Lake Chad
• Mono Lake
• Tulare Lake
• Urmia Lake

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Micklin, Philip (2007). "The Aral Sea Disaster". Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 35 (4): 47–72. DOI:10.1146/annurev.earth.35.031306.140120. http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.earth.35.031306.140120. Retrieved 2008-05-17. 
• Bissell, Tom (April 2002). "Eternal Winter: Lessons of the Aral Sea Disaster". Harper's: pp. 41–56. http://harpers.org/archive/2002/04/0079135. Retrieved 2008-05-17. 
• Bissell, Tom (2004). Chasing The Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-375-72754-2. 
• Ellis, William S (February 1990). "A Soviet Sea Lies Dying". National Geographic: pp. 73–93. 
• Ferguson, Rob (2003). The Devil and the Disappearing Sea. Vancouver: Raincoast Books. ISBN 1-55192-599-0. 
• Kasperson, Jeanne; Kasperson, Roger; Turner, B.L (1995). The Aral Sea Basin: A Man-Made Environmental Catastrophe. Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. p. 92. ISBN 92-808-0848-6. 
• Bendhun, François; Renard, Philippe (2004). "Indirect estimation of groundwater inflows into the Aral sea via a coupled water and salt mass balance model". Journal of Marine Systems 47 (1-4): 35–50. DOI:10.1016/j.jmarsys.2003.12.007. http://www1.unine.ch/chyn/php/publica_detail.php?id=560. Retrieved 2008-05-17. 
• Sirjacobs, Damien; Grégoire, Marilaure; Delhez, Eric; Nihoul, JCJ (2004). "Influence of the Aral Sea negative water balance on its seasonal circulation patterns: use of a 3D hydrodynamic model". Journal of Marine Systems 47 (1-4): 51–66. DOI:10.1016/j.jmarsys.2003.12.008. http://hdl.handle.net/2268/2793. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Aral Sea

• Post-Soviet Legacy: Aral Sea Pollution from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives
• "Aral Sea Foundation". http://www.aralsea.org/. Retrieved April 2010. 
• "The Aral Sea Crisis". Union for Defence of the Aral Sea and Amudarya river (UDASA). http://www.udasa.org/. Retrieved April 2010. 
• "Water-related vision for the Aral Sea basin for the year 2025" (in English/Russian). UNESCO. March 2000. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001262/126259mo.pdf. Retrieved April 2010. 
• MirrorMundo (February 2007). "UNESCO promotes unsustainable development in Central Asia". Indymedia. http://indymedia.nl/nl/2007/02/42459.shtml. Retrieved April 2010. 
• "Syr Darya Control & Northern Aral Sea Phase I Project". World Bank Group - Kazakhstan. December 2006. http://www.worldbank.org.kz/external/projects/main?pagePK=64283627&piPK=73230&theSitePK=361869&menuPK=361902&Projectid=P046045. Retrieved April 2010. 
• The Aral Sea Videos

v t e Lakes of Kazakhstan Caspian Sea  • Aike  • Alakol  • Aral (North • South)  • Balkhash  • Bartogay  • Chagan • Issyk  • Jasybay  • Kayindi  • Kamyslybas  • Markakol  • Sasykkol  • Tengiz  • Zaysan  • Zhasylkol

The sea at La Jolla, California in the Gulf of Catalina

A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean.^[1] It is also used sometimes to describe a large saline lake that lacks a natural outlet, such as the Caspian Sea.

Arctic (belonging to the Arctic Ocean) and Antarctic (Southern Ocean) seas, as well as some other seas freeze in winter. This occurs below the freezing point of pure water, at about -1.8 °C (28.8 °F). Frozen salt water becomes sea ice.^[2]

History[link]

Phoenician (yellow) and Greek (red) colonies in the Mediterranean in the 1st millennium BC

Humans navigated seas from antiquity. Ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians navigated the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Hannu was the first see explorer of whom there is any information. He sailed along the Red Sea and further to the Arabian Peninsula and the African Coast around 2750 BC.^[3] In the 1st millennium BC, Phoenicians and Greeks established colonies all over the Mediterranean, including its outlets like the Black Sea. The seas along the eastern and the southern Asian coast were used by Arabs and Chinese for navigation, and the North Sea and the Baltic Sea were known to Europeans in Roman times. Other seas were not used for navigation in the antiquity and were actually discovered.

The White Sea was known to Novgorodians and used for navigation since not later that the 13th century.^[4] Pomors, living at the White Sea coast, also sailed to Svalbard, but the Barents Sea got its name later, due to the 16th century Dutch expedition headed by Willem Barentsz. Other seas in Arctic Russia were explored in connection with the search of the Northern Sea Route. In the first half of the 17th century the Kara Sea was already used on a regular basis for navigation between the city of Arkhangelsk and the mouth of the Ob River and upstream to the city of Mangazeya (Mangazeya Trade Route) and to the mouth of the Yenisei River (Yenisey Trade Route).^[5] In 1648, Semyon Dezhnev led an expedition down the Kolyma River, around the cape now known as Cape Dezhnev, and to the mouth of the Anadyr River.^[6] By the end of the 17th century, the seas along what is now Arctic and Pacific coasts of Russia were already discovered, although the systematic description and reliable mapping of the coast line only started in the 18th century, and the geographical locations of all islands were only established in the first half of the 20th century, when aviation was employed.

List of seas[link]

[edit] Atlantic Ocean

[edit] Mediterranean Sea

Aegean Sea Mirtoon Sea Sea of Crete Thracian Sea Adriatic Sea

Alboran Sea Balearic Sea Catalan Sea Cilician Sea

Gulf of Sidra Ionian Sea Levantine Sea Libyan Sea

Ligurian Sea Sea of Sardinia Sea of Sicily Tyrrhenian Sea

[edit] Baltic Sea

Archipelago Sea Bay of Bothnia Bothnian Sea

Central Baltic Sea Gulf of Bothnia Gulf of Finland

Gulf of Riga Oresund Strait Sea of Åland

Archipelago Sea

Others[link]

Argentine Sea Bay of Biscay Bay of Campeche Bay of Fundy Black Sea[7] Caribbean Sea Celtic Sea

Chesapeake Bay Davis Strait Denmark Strait English Channel Gulf of Guinea Gulf of Maine

Gulf of Mexico Gulf of St. Lawrence Gulf of Venezuela Irish Sea Labrador Sea Marmara Sea[7]

North Sea Norwegian Sea Sargasso Sea Sea of Azov[7] Sea of the Hebrides Wadden Sea

[edit] Arctic Ocean

Amundsen Gulf Baffin Bay Barents Sea Beaufort Sea Chukchi Sea

East Siberian Sea Greenland Sea Hudson Bay James Bay Kara Sea Kara Strait

Laptev Sea Lincoln Sea Prince Gustav Adolf Sea Pechora Sea White Sea

Beaufort Sea

[edit] Southern Ocean

Amundsen Sea Bass Strait Bellingshausen Sea Cooperation Sea Cosmonauts Sea

Davis Sea D'Urville Sea Drake Passage Great Australian Bight Gulf St Vincent

King Haakon VII Sea Lazarev Sea Mawson Sea Riiser-Larsen Sea Ross Sea

Scotia Sea Somov Sea Spencer Gulf Weddell Sea

[edit] Indian Ocean

Andaman Sea Arabian Sea Bay of Bengal

Gulf of Aden Gulf of Oman

Laccadive Sea Mozambique Channel Persian Gulf

Red Sea Timor Sea

[edit] Pacific Ocean

Arafura Sea Banda Sea Bering Sea Bismarck Sea Bohai Sea Bohol Sea (also known as the Mindanao Sea) Camotes Sea Celebes Sea Ceram Sea

Chilean Sea Sea of Chiloé Coral Sea East China Sea Flores Sea Gulf of Alaska Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortéz) Gulf of Carpentaria Gulf of Thailand

Halmahera Sea Java Sea Koro Sea Molucca Sea Philippine Sea Salish Sea Savu Sea Sea of Japan Sea of Okhotsk

Seto Inland Sea Sibuyan Sea Solomon Sea South China Sea Sulu Sea Tasman Sea Visayan Sea Yellow Sea

[edit] Landlocked seas

Some large inland lakes, usually brackish, are called "seas".

Aral Sea Caspian Sea

Dead Sea Sea of Galilee

Great Salt Lake Salton Sea

List of seas by surface area[link]

No.	Name of the Water Body	Surface area (sq.mi)	Surface area (sq.km)
1	Philippine Sea	2,000,000	5,177,762
2	Coral Sea	1,850,000	4,791,000
3	Arabian Sea	1,491,130	3,862,000
4	South China Sea	1,351,936	3,500,000
5	Weddell Sea	1,081,548	2,800,000
6	Caribbean Sea	1,063,000	2,754,000
7	Mediterranean Sea	965,000	2,500,000
8	Tasman Sea	900,000	2,330,000
9	Bering Sea	873,000	2,260,100
10	Bay of Bengal	838,970	2,172,000

Rank	Body of water	Square miles (square kilometres)
1	Pacific Ocean	64,196,000 sq mi (166,270,000 km2)
2	Atlantic Ocean	33,400,000 sq mi (87,000,000 km2)
3	Indian Ocean	28,400,000 sq mi (74,000,000 km2)
4	Southern Ocean	20,327,000 sq mi (52,650,000 km2)
5	Arctic Ocean	5,100,000 sq mi (13,000,000 km2)
6	Arabian Sea	1,491,000 sq mi (3,860,000 km2)
7	South China Sea	1,148,000 sq mi (2,970,000 km2)
8	Caribbean Sea	971,000 sq mi (2,510,000 km2)
9	Mediterranean Sea	969,000 sq mi (2,510,000 km2)
10	Bering Sea	873,000 sq mi (2,260,000 km2)
11	Bay of Bengal	838,612 sq mi (2,172,000 km2)
12	Gulf of Mexico	582,000 sq mi (1,510,000 km2)
13	Sea of Okhotsk	537,000 sq mi (1,390,000 km2)
14	Sea of Japan	391,000 sq mi (1,010,000 km2)
15	Hudson Bay	282,000 sq mi (730,000 km2)
16	East China Sea	257,000 sq mi (670,000 km2)
17	Andaman Sea	218,100 sq mi (565,000 km2)
18	Red Sea	175,000 sq mi (450,000 km2)
19	Black Sea	168,500 sq mi (436,000 km2)
20	North Sea	165,000 sq mi (430,000 km2)
21	Baltic Sea	147,000 sq mi (380,000 km2)
22	Yellow Sea	113,500 sq mi (294,000 km2)
23	Persian Gulf	88,800 sq mi (230,000 km2)
24	Adriatic Sea	60,000 sq mi (160,000 km2)
25	Gulf of California	59,000 sq mi (150,000 km2)

Bodies of water which are missing from this table, and their approximate areas, include:

• Philippine Sea (2,000,000 sq mi)
• Coral Sea (1,849,800 sq mi)
• Sargasso Sea (roughly 1,400,000 sq mi)
• Weddell Sea (1,080,000 sq mi)
• Tasman Sea (900,000 sq mi)
• Gulf of Alaska (592,000 sq mi)
• Barents Sea (542,000 sq mi)
• Greenland Sea (465,000 sq mi)
• Mozambique Channel (roughly 425,000 sq mi)
• Argentine Sea (386,000 sq mi)
• Ross Sea (370,000 sq mi)
• East Siberian Sea (361,000 sq mi)
• Scotia Sea (350,000 sq mi)
• Kara Sea (340,000 sq mi)
• Solomon Sea (280,000 sq mi)
• Laptev Sea (276,000 sq mi)
• Baffin Bay (266,000 sq mi)
• Arafura Sea (250,000 sq mi)
• Timor Sea (235,000 sq mi)
• Chukchi Sea (225,000 sq mi)
• Norwegian Sea (222,000 sq mi)
• Gulf of Aden (205,000 sq mi)
• Beaufort Sea (184,000 sq mi)
• Banda Sea (180,000 sq mi)
• Gulf of Thailand (roughly 146,000 sq mi)
• Caspian Sea (142,800 sq mi)
• Java Sea (124,000 sq mi)
• Gulf of Carpentaria (120,000 sq mi)
• Celebes Sea (110,000 sq mi)
• Sulu Sea (100,000 sq mi)
• Flores Sea (93,000 sq mi)
• Bay of Biscay (86,000 sq mi)
• Aegean Sea (83,000 sq mi)
• Molucca Sea (77,000 sq mi)
• Gulf of Saint Lawrence (60,000 sq mi)
• This list is incomplete.

Nomenclature[link]

• The Sea of Galilee is a small freshwater lake with a natural outlet, which is called Lake Tiberias or Lake Kinneret on modern Israeli maps, but its original name remains in use.
• The Sea of Cortés is more commonly known as the Gulf of California.
• The Dead Sea is actually a lake, as is the Caspian Sea and the mainly dried up Aral Sea.

See also[link]

• Oceanography
• European Atlas of the Seas
• Inlet
• International Maritime Organization
• List of places on land with elevations below sea level
• Pole of inaccessibility: the locations farthest from any coastline
• Marine debris
• Sea level
• Sea level rise
• Sea salt
• Seven Seas
• Borders of the oceans

References[link]

1. ^ "Sea - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary". Merriam-webster.com. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sea. Retrieved 2012-03-13. 
2. ^ "Sea ice (ice formation)". Britannica Online Encyclopedia. 2012 [last update]. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/939404/sea-ice. Retrieved 5 March 2012. 
3. ^ "The Ancient World - Egypt". marinersmuseum.org. Mariners' Museum. 2012 [last update]. http://www.marinersmuseum.org/education/ancient-world-egypt. Retrieved 5 March 2012. 
4. ^ "Зацепились за Моржовец" (in Russian). Русское географическое общество. 2012 [last update]. http://www.rgo.ru/2010/08/zacepilis-za-morzhovec/. Retrieved 5 March 2012. 
5. ^ Урванцев, Н. Н. (1969). "История открытия и освоения медно-никелевых руд Сибирского Севера" (in Russian). Moscow: Недра. http://library.ikz.ru/hronologiya-osvoeniya-sibiri/Mangazeya. Retrieved 7 March 2012. 
6. ^ Howgego, Ray (2001 [last update]). "Discoverers Web: Dezhnev". win.tue.nl. http://www.win.tue.nl/~engels/discovery/dezhnev.html. Retrieved 7 March 2012. 
7. ^ ^{a b c} often treated as part of Mediterranean Sea

External links[link]

Look up sea in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Seas

• Oceans at the Open Directory Project
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

v t e Earth's oceans and seas Arctic Ocean Amundsen Gulf Barents Sea Beaufort Sea Bering Strait Chukchi Sea East Siberian Sea Fram Strait Greenland Sea Gulf of Boothia Kara Sea Kara Strait Laptev Sea Lincoln Sea Prince Gustav Adolf Sea Pechora Sea Wandel Sea White Sea Atlantic Ocean Adriatic Sea Aegean Sea Alboran Sea Archipelago Sea Argentine Sea Baffin Bay Balearic Sea Baltic Sea Bay of Biscay Bay of Bothnia Bay of Campeche Bay of Fundy Black Sea Bothnian Sea Caribbean Sea Celtic Sea Davis Strait Denmark Strait English Channel Foxe Basin Greenland Sea Gulf of Bothnia Gulf of Finland Gulf of Lion Gulf of Guinea Gulf of Maine Gulf of Mexico Gulf of St. Lawrence Gulf of Venezuela Hudson Bay James Bay Ionian Sea Irish Sea Irminger Sea Labrador Sea Levantine Sea Libyan Sea Ligurian Sea Marmara Sea Mediterranean Sea Myrtoan Sea North Sea Norwegian Sea Saint Lawrence Seaway Sargasso Sea Sea of Åland Sea of Azov Sea of Crete Sea of the Hebrides Thracian Sea Tyrrhenian Sea Indian Ocean Andaman Sea Arabian Sea Bay of Bengal Gulf of Aden Gulf of Aqaba Gulf of Khambhat Gulf of Kutch Gulf of Oman Gulf of Suez Laccadive Sea Mozambique Channel Persian Gulf Red Sea Strait of Malacca Timor Sea Pacific Ocean Arafura Sea Bali Sea Banda Sea Bering Sea Bismarck Sea Bohai Sea Bohol Sea Camotes Sea Celebes Sea Ceram Sea Chilean Sea Coral Sea East China Sea Flores Sea Gulf of Alaska Gulf of California Gulf of Carpentaria Gulf of Fonseca Gulf of Thailand Gulf of Tonkin Halmahera Sea Java Sea Koro Sea Makassar Strait Molucca Sea Moro Gulf Philippine Sea Salish Sea Savu Sea Sea of Japan Sea of Okhotsk Seto Inland Sea Sibuyan Sea Solomon Sea South China Sea Sulu Sea Tasman Sea Visayan Sea Yellow Sea Southern Ocean Amundsen Sea Bellingshausen Sea Cooperation Sea Cosmonauts Sea Davis Sea D'Urville Sea King Haakon VII Sea Lazarev Sea Riiser-Larsen Sea Mawson Sea Ross Sea Scotia Sea Somov Sea Weddell Sea Landlocked seas Aral Sea Caspian Sea Dead Sea Salton Sea

lez:Гьуьл