17 Facts About Aral Sea

1.

Aral Sea was an endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan in the north and Uzbekistan in the south which began shrinking in the 1960s and had largely dried up by the 2010s.

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2.

The Aral Sea region is heavily polluted, with consequent serious public health problems.

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3.

However, the Aral Sea basin had an exceptional array of endemic fish subspecies .

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4.

The copepod Calanipeda aquaedulcis was introduced to the Aral Sea to replace the zooplankton species reduced by the herring population, and the North American mud crab Rhithropanopeus harrisii was inadvertently introduced during this attempt as well.

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5.

The future prospects for aquatic invertebrates in all remaining Aral Sea fragments depend on their future changes in salinity.

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6.

Aral Sea was part of the western frontier of the Chinese Empire during the Tang dynasty.

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7.

Russian naval presence on the Aral Sea began in 1847 with the founding of Raimsk, soon renamed Fort Aralsk, near the mouth of the Syr Darya.

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8.

Unfortunately, saxaul wood proved not to be a suitable fuel and in the later years the Aral Sea Flotilla was provisioned, at substantial cost, by coal from the Donbas.

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9.

Loss of water in the Aral Sea has changed surface temperatures and wind patterns.

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10.

South Aral Sea remains too saline to host any species other than halotolerant organisms.

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11.

The South Aral Sea has been incapable of supporting fish since the late 1990s, when the flounder were killed by rising salinity levels.

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12.

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.

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13.

Only excess water from the North Aral Sea is periodically allowed to flow into the largely dried-up South Aral Sea through a sluice in the dyke.

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14.

International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea was developed on 23 March 1993, by the ICWC to raise funds for the projects under Aral Sea Basin programmes.

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15.

In 1948, a top-secret Soviet bioweapons laboratory was established on the island, in the centre of the Aral Sea which is disputed territory between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

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16.

Plight of the Aral Sea coast was portrayed in the 1989 film Psy by Soviet director Dmitri Svetozarov.

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17.

The film was shot on location in an actual ghost town located near the Aral Sea, showing scenes of abandoned buildings and scattered vessels.

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