As the Caspian Sea Disappears, Life Goes on for Those Living by Its Shores
Scientists predict the world’s largest inland sea will shrink by a quarter due to climate change by the end of the century. April 27, 2021 The Caspian Sea has fallen by 100 meters at the city of Derbent since the Soviet era. Felix Light / MT
DERBENT, Dagestan At low tide, the waves on the beach fall back to expose an odd pile of rocks, half buried in the sand. Smooth and grey, some are carved into arched gateways. They are the last traces of a centuries-old tower, long hidden beneath the sea.
A former resident of Moynaq, in the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan, remembers a time when the Aral Sea meant bustling fishing villages and days spent by the sea’s shore. “I was five or six the last time I saw ships in the sea when we went swimming,” says Marat Allakuatov.
The ships are long gone, like much of the lake.
Soviet mismanagement
This is largely down to years of Soviet-era mismanagement on a truly monumental scale. In 1960, the USSR took the decision to use the vast, arid plains of the region surrounding the Aral Sea for cotton farming, a water-heavy crop. Lacking sufficient hydraulic infrastructure, the Soviet state began an immense plan to divert two rivers, Sir Darya and Amu Darya, through a 500 kilometre-long channel to irrigate the cotton fields. Diverting the rivers – which fed the Aral Sea – deprived the lake of much of its water flow.
Jan 19 2021 Read 962 Times
The impact of climate change upon sea levels is well-documented. Rising temperatures across the globe lead to the thawing of Arctic and Antarctic ice caps, which in turn means that sea levels become higher. But while much of the limelight falls upon this important topic, relatively little attention is devoted to other bodies of water, such as lakes and lagoons.
In order to shed light on this underexplored area of research, a collection of scientists from universities in the Netherlands and Germany have embarked on a collaborative study of how climate change has affected the Caspian Sea. Despite its name, the body of water is actually a lake – and the largest lake in the world, moreover – making it a perfect case study for the subject as a whole.
January 7th, 2021, by Tim Radford
The Caspian Sea stands to be at least nine metres lower later this century.
The Caspian Sea’s decline means a climate-led water crisis for at least five Asian nations as inland seas dry up.
LONDON, 7 January, 2021 − The Caspian Sea − the world’s largest lake − is about to go down in the world. And with it could go the fortunes of some of the people of at least five nations. New research suggests that the Caspian Sea, already getting lower at the rate of several centimetres a year, is to go into even faster decline: later this century, it could be nine metres lower than it is now. Or even 18 metres lower.