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ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY
Running head: ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY 1
ARAL ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY REPORT
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The Aral Sea which is a terminal lying lake within the deserts of Central Asia was the 4th largest lake in the world before 1960. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization, the Aral Sea basin is a transboundary river basin at the center of the Eurasian continent covering a total area of 1.76 million km2 (FAO, 2012). From the 1960s onwards the sea has reduced not only in size but has also undergone drastic changes in terms of supporting biodiversity and changes in salinity. The culmination was the splitting of the lake into two separate parts known as the southern Large Sea and the northern Small Sea. NASA satellite images show that the sea has lost nearly 90% of its volume now occupying only about 12,130 km2 as 2011 as compared to 67,000 km2 (White, 2013). However, these changes did not occur spontaneously but were instead based on cause and effects basis which are mostly attributed to human activities in the region and utter disregard of principles of ecology.
The effects of the human activities in Aral Sea basin has been labeled as the greatest human-caused ecological disaster of all times according to the Environmental Literacy Council an opinion which is also held by Haas who terms the situation at Aral as the biggest disaster of nature to have ever been provoked by humankind(Haas,2014). The history of the start of the detrimental human activities dates around the time of the Russian expansion into the region. Before the outside influence, people in the area were organized in small communities known as Auls. They coexisted with the biodiversity of the region since they were fishermen an activity which had no adverse effect on the ecosystem. However, it is with the expansion of the USSR that things started to change rapidly.
The affluence of the Soviets was the beginning of the current situation of the sea. In the early 1850s, after they had occupied the region, they started by building huge cities near the shores of the sea and developing infrastructure which linked the area to the outside. This on its part opened up the region leading to an influx of Russian agricultural settlers into the region who quickly seized the fertile land around the region to start farming thus compromising the ratio of water resources to its usage (Haas, 2014). Apart from developing the region’s infrastructure, collective farming was introduced which replaced fishing and livestock herding as the main economic activities. The introduction of farming came with the massive expansion and implementation of large scale modern irrigation systems. As the area was dry, water was diverted from rivers Amu Darya and Syr Darya which supplied Aral Sea with fresh water. This marked the start of the disaster which was further exacerbated by the principle which was adopted of “humans over nature” which aimed at implementing modern constructions of any manner to exploit the resources in the Aral region (Haas, 2014). The human disregard of ecology was furthered by the testing of biochemical weapons on one of the Aral Sea islands while the biochemical waste was deposited on another island which resulted in massive destruction of sea life.
The tipping point on the destruction of the Aral Sea was after World War II. Competition for dominance was at its peak with each of the two superpowers wanting to be dominant in the agricultural sector including in the production of cotton. Thus as White states, the Soviet planners decided to revitalize Central Asia to be the major source of cotton (White, 2013). The planners understood that the region was dry and thus their plan involved having vast expansion of irrigation infrastructure, massive use of herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers and defoliants in later years. Although the planners understood that such activities would have devastating results, their rudimentary analysis of cost-benefit was more concerned with economic benefits that would be derived from irrigated agriculture (White, 2013). The shocking thing is that even by 1960 when the end in the stability of the lake’s level was evident, this decline was deemed as a positive economic outcome (White, 2013).
The push for increased cotton production continued even after 1960 until the collapse of USSR in the 1990s. By 1980, the area plan was in full operation with the acreage under irrigation rising from 1.9 million hectares to 3.1 million hectares. Such vast areas meant that more water was required meaning more diversion of water from rivers the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya and significantly reducing inflow into the Aral Sea. Furthermore, the use of unlined irrigation canals meant increase seepage into the groundwater thus raising the groundwater levels resulting in increased salinization (White, 2013). Thus with the disaster looming around, USSR became the second largest cotton exporter by 1980s. Even with the fall of the USSR, the independent states continued the exploitation of the sea water to pursue their economic development with utter disregard of the state of the sea. The effect of these activities was marked by the closure of the once vibrant fishing industry. The impact of human activity was further increased by the rise in population in the region. With a population 46 million people as of 2006 compared to 15 million people in 1960, the population growth spelled further strain in the Seawater since nearly 90% of this population is relies on agriculture (FAO, 2012).
Although there were no natural changes that exacerbated degradation of the ecosystem, the results of the human activities have had a very negative impact on nature. Human failed to understand the principle ecological principle of disturbance that the ecosystem has a limit to the extent to which it can cope with stress or distress and return to its stable state (Vold and Buffet, 2008). Also, the dumping of biochemical wastes in the sea island ignores the principle that calls for maintaining of habitat as being fundamental to conserving species and that climate influences freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems. Thus the disregard of these principles has had devastating effects not only on the ecosystem but also the people around the region. According to a World health organization report, the health professionals in the area have described the quality of life and level of health in the region as profoundly poor (White, 2013). This was attributed to the close ties between the human health and ecosystem health of which humans are part of.
The effects of human activities continue to exist up to date with the most notable being lack of safe drinking water in regions such as Karakalpakstan where water is extremely polluted with heavy organic and inorganic substances such as DDT, nitrogen and phosphorous. Health issues have increased with anemia, liver and kidney diseases, tuberculosis, allergies, cancer and respiratory infections becoming very common in the region (Ataniyazova, 2003). Further, life expectancy has further declined from 64 years to 51 years coupled with high maternal and infant morbidity and mortality. Fertility problems have also been found to be a prevalent problem with more than 16% of the region’s population having fertility issues (Ataniyazova, 2003). Besides the human effect, environmental changes have been drastic with extreme temperatures experienced during summers and winter. Further summers have become longer and extremely dry while winters are snowless. Dust storms from the dry seabed have become a common phenomenon further escalating the health hazard in the region.
There have been various plans to restore the ecosystem with one of them being the World Bank through the Syr Darya Control and Northern Aral Sea which aimed at restoring the North Aral Sea. Further, in 2004, five countries from the region formed a regional water and energy strategy which is within the framework of the United Nations Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia which aimed at enhancing ecological conditions to improve human health and conserve biodiversity (FAO, 2012). Additionally, the introduction of species which are tolerant of the currents saline conditions of Aral sea has also been attempted and in progress (Plotnikov, 2016).
To conclude, the report has shown nature has its way of responding to continued disturbance either natural or human engineered. The disaster at the Aral Sea is an example that human beings can sometimes be careless enough to disregard the wellbeing of future generations so long as there is current gain associated with their activities. However, the result of such actions has proved to be devastating with far more reaching effects than it could have been imagined. Although there have been conservation measures to conserve the sea and restore it to its original or near original state, the current condition is a warning and lesson to all that nature will not hesitate to react and when it does all we can do is try to make things right.
References
Ataniyazova, O. A. (2003). Health and Ecological Consequences of the Aral Sea Crisis. Retrieved February 9, 2019, from http://www.caee.utexas.edu/prof/mckinney/ce385d/papers/atanizaova_wwf3.pdf
Food and Agricultural Organization.(2012).The Aral Sea transboundary river basin. Retrieved February 9, 2019, from http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/basins/aral-sea/aral.sea-CP_eng.pdf
Haas, C. (2014). The Aral Sea. Retrieved February 9, 2019, from https://archivesma.epfl.ch/2014/036/haas_enonce/haas_christina_enonce.pdf/
Plotnikov, I. S., Ermakhanov, Z. K., Aladin, N. V., & Micklin, P. (2017). Modern state of the Small (Northern) Aral Sea fauna. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lre.12149
The Environmental Literacy Council. The Aral Sea. Retrieved February 9, 2019, from https://enviroliteracy.org/special-features/geoquiz/aral-sea/
Vold, T. and D.A. Buffett (eds.). 2008. Ecological Concepts, Principles and Applications to Conservation, BC. Retrieved February 9, 2019, from: www.biodiversitybc.org
White, K. D. (2013). Nature-society linkages in the Aral Sea region. Retrieved February 9, 2019, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187936651200022X