Figure 1.Map of the Aral Sea area. Twoshorelines are shown:1960 and1989.Locations of catches of the large Amu-Dar shovelnose
sturgeon between1989 and 1993 aremarkedwitharrows.
text ofenvironmentalchanges in thearea, is the
maingoal of thispaper.
irrigation.Thisresulted in a considerablereduction
in the discharge ofwater from theriversinto theAral
Sea,which, inturn,caused the drying out of thesea, a
gradualshrinking of itssize, and agradualincrease in
its salinity. Themostsignificantimpact was in the
lowerreaches of the AmuDaryaRiver.Supplying
irrigation channels, lakes, andartificialreservoirs
withwater becameimpossiblewithoutspecialdams,
whichwere constructed in the lowerreaches of the
river beginning in1967.Thesedams arestillneeded
for distribution ofwater from theriver, evenafter
construction of the Takhiatash Dam(220 kmfrom
the mouth) andTuyamuyunHydrocomplexwith its
system of reservoirs(450 kmfrom therivermouth).
Damsconstructed on the AmuDaryaRiver in
the 1960s cut offmanyanadromousfishes, including
the shipsturgeon, from the sea.This caused asharp
decline inabundance of theshipsturgeon by the
middle1970s.Moreover, use ofmineralfertilizers
and pesticides forcottonagriculture resulted in an
incrediblyhighlevel ofpollution. Water of the riv-The Aral Sea disaster: catastrophic changes in the
ecosystem of the AmuDarya River and Aral Sea
Changes in the Amu Darya RiverThe Amu DaryaRiver is thelongestriver of Cen-
tralAsia,being2325 kmlong. It starts in themoun-
tain regions of Pamir andHinduKush and has no
tributariesdownstream for thelast1257 km of its
length. In the past, itentered the Aral Seanear the
town ofMuynakwhich waslocated in the Amu Da-
rya River delta; at present, theriverends at a dis-
tance of 100 kmfrom theshrunken sea. A map of
the region isgiven inFigure 1.
The Aral Seaecologicalcatastrophe wasinitially
caused by intensive and irrevocable removal of wa-
ter from the AmuDarya and Syr Daryarivers for