Antique maps incorporating the Aral Sea

Portions of the RUSSIAN EMPIRE in Eastern and Western Asia. 1. The Aral Sea according to Khanikoff. 2. Kamchatka according to A. Erman by Augustus PETERMANN.
Publisher: The Royal Illustrated Atlas of Modern Geography.. Fullarton & Co. c.1850. Plate 8. Steel engraving. Hand coloured. Two maps on one sheet, one showing the Aral Sea, and the other showing Kamchatka. There are three vignettes to the left depicting the Kirghiz people from near the Aral Sea, and three vignettes of Kamchatkan life to the right. Below the maps is a view of 'Petropaulovski', a port in Kamchatka.

Asian Russia -West Siberia- Lake Aral byJacob KUYPER                                        

'Aziatisch Rusland. Aral Meer en omstreken.' (Asian Russia. Lake Aral and surroundings).This lithographed map originates from: 'Wereld-atlas voor Kantoor en Huiskamer' (transl: World Atlas for the office and living room),

Publisher:  Jacob Kuyper (1821 - 1908), Dutch cartographer, published in 1880 - 1882 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands by G. L. Funke.The overall size is ca. 19 x 24 cm. The image size is ca. 15 x 20.5 cm. Lithograph on a vellin type of paper.

History shows that parched Aral Sea can be restored - New Scientist

The Aral Sea has lost 90 per cent of its volume since 1960 (Image: NASA)

In less than a century, humanity destroyed the Aral Sea. It is one of the most emblematic environmental disasters. In 1961, the Aral Sea in central Asia was the world's fourth largest lake. But massive irrigation programmes begun during the Soviet era diverted water from the rivers that feed it, reducing the lake's volume to just 10 per cent of what it was and leaving large areas dry.

Geologists have now discovered that the Aral Sea has previously recovered naturally from such severe declines. The sea has collapsed at least twice before, and has recovered both times. To read more go to the  article by Jeff Hetch (New Scientist 23-05-14)  History-shows-that-parched-aral-sea-can-be-restored

Excellent Short Travel Videos on Uzbekistan

Excellent Short Videos on Uzbekistan

1. Explore the heart of the Silk Road Uzbekistan (4:44)

Go to  Uzbekistan Gem of the Silk Road

2. Travel through Uzbekistan in April 2012; Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva, the Kyzylkum Desert & Nukus - Florian Witulski (7:38)

3. Magical Uzbekistan - Khiva, Euronews (5:01)

4. Magical Uzbekistan - Bukara, Euronews (5:01)

  5. Euronews Video - Samakand Nov 2013 (both 5:00)  

   

Aral Sea and the Amu Darya River

The Aral Sea was once the world's fourth largest inland water body with a surface of 67,300 square kilometers. It supported a lucrative muskrat pelt industry and thriving fishery, providing 40,000 jobs and supplying the Soviet Union with a sixth of its fish catch.

The Aral Sea is fed by two of Central Asia's greatest rivers, the Amu Darya in the south and the Syr Darya in the north. The former is the longest river in the region, snaking through 2,414 kilometers of steppe.

In the 1950s and 60s, the  Soviet Union built an enormous irrigation network, including 20,000 Km. of canals, 45 dams, and more than 80 reservoirs, all to irrigate sprawling fields of cotton and wheat in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Many of the canals were poorly built, allowing water to leak or evaporate. From the Qaraqum Canal in Turkmenistan, the largest in Central Asia, it is said that up to 75% of the water went to waste.

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 onfarm channels, only 21% have antifiltration linings, which retain on average 15% more water than unlined channels.

The Amu Darya had lost so much of its flow that it no longer reached the Aral Sea. Today, it ends around about 110 kilometers away.

Photo: Corbis

Pictured above is the Amu Darya a little ways upstream from where it now ends. Deprived of a major source of its water, the inland sea shrank rapidly. In just a few decades, the Aral Sea has been  significantly reduced in size. It is now a series of smaller water bodies, with a combined volume one-tenth its original and much higher salinity due to all the evaporation.

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 Aral Sea Basin Program.

The Program’s four objectives are:
- To stabilise 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

Source: http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/photos/rivers-run-dry/#/freshwater-rivers-amu-darya-1_45139_600x450.jpg

Aral Sea maps 1850's

Source: Aral Sea Map Alexi Butakoff 1853

http://cluster3.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/maps/aral.html

"Survey of the Sea of Aral by Commander A. Butakoff, Imperial Russian Navy, 1848 & 1849." from the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, Vol. 23, 1853 to accompany "Survey of the Sea of Aral" by Commander Alexey Butakoff

Aral Sea in Winter

Aral Sea in Winter

The Ustyurt Plateau

INTRODUCTION

The Ustyurt Plateau also known as the Ust-Urt and Usturt Plateau. (Kazakh: Üstirt, Turkmen: Üstyurt) . The plateau located between the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea. It extends roughly 200,000 km²  and consists primarily of stony desert. The plateau’s semi-nomadic population raises sheep, goats, and camels. The Ustyurt is clearly demarcated by its steep escarpments, which reach up to 200m in height called T'chinks.

It is generally a barren and fairly featureless place. In summer, temperatures can reach 42°C and in the winter can fall to -40°C. Coupled with a strong winds it can feel in the summer like being in the permanent blast of a furnace.

The area is inhabited by such rare animals as Usturt Saiga, the moufflon or urial, ratel from the family of martens, long-needled hedge-hog and a good many species of wild cats: karakal, barkhan cat and the famous cheetah and . Birdlife includes  slim gazelles-zhairans, beautiful bustards (or Jacks) and other birds of desert.

The T'Chink

The Ustyurt is an extraordinary natural geological feature, a sand and limestone desert plateau stretching 800km from north to south. It sits on its own micro-tectonic plate or massif which has been gradually elevated over the past four or five million years so that it now stands around 200 metres higher than the delta plane.




Generally the plateau is a slightly hilly desert plain, faintly covered by a wormwood and unprepossessing shrubs of Russian thistle. In wide-spread drainless depressions there also occur shrubs of black saxaul. Steep ledges or (T'chinks) add immensely to the inimitable beauty of the landscape. The western part of the chink is especially picturesque, which achieves 340 meters in elevation; its eroded precipice takes quite fanciful forms. These breakages, formed by the wind, have an almost whimsical character.

To visit the T'Chink you can drive from Nukus to Qon'ırat (Kungrad) and then up onto the plateau or go first to Shomanay and then head northwest towards Shamambet. You will see first the t'chink like some white dream-like apparition along the horizon.

NEARBY WATER BODIES

The Ustyurt (U'stırt) Plateau stretches between the Caspian Sea (left) and the Aral Sea (upper right quadrant). The Plateau is shared between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan with a small area in the south within Turkmenistan.

There are a number of bodies of water nearby the Plateau. To the lower left of the Map you can see the greenish-blue Karabogas Bay a shallow inundated depression in the northwestern corner of Turkmenistan, a bay on the edge the Caspian Sea, with a surface area of about 14,000 km².

To the east of this can be seen the dark Sarygamysh Lake (salt), situated in north central Turkmenistan with the northwest quarter of the lake in Uzbekistan.

The greenish area to the lake’s northeast is vegetation around the Amu Darya River, which once fed the Aral Sea to its north. Since the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers were diverted by irrigation projects, the Aral Sea has shrunken rapidly.

As of 2007 it had declined to around 10% of its original size, splitting into three separate lakes, two of which are now too salty to support fish.

The Aral in 1985


















Main Sources :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ustyurt_Plateau
http://www.eosnap.com/tag/sarygamysh-lake/?gtlang=gl
http://www.autoreview.ru

The Aral Sea

ARAL SEA

Photo: Process drying of Aral sea (Interactive map from wikimedia.org)

Millions of years ago, the northwestern part of Uzbekistan and western Kazakhstan were covered by a massive inland sea. When the waters receded, they left a remnant sea known as the Aral.

The Aral as an inland salt-water sea has no outlet being fed by the Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers. The fresh water from these two rivers once held the Aral's water and salt levels in balance. However after the 50ies and 60ies when a series of major irrigation schemes were undertaken on the two rivers by Soviet Engineers the water started to recede.

The schemes were based on constructing a series of dams on both two rivers to create reservoirs from which eventially 40.000 km of canals would be dug to divert water to field crops. Afterwards however there was little or no water left in the riverbeds to flow to the Aral Sea. Consequently the water level in the last 50 years in the Aral has dropped by 16 metres (60%) and the volume has been reduced by 75 percent.

Whilst triggering what is considered one of the 20th Centuries greatest ecological disasters; these schemes will not be reversed as irrigated crops are the main source of income and food for millions of people living in the region. The fall in the Aral Sea appears to have slowed, the most recent Google Earth images showed only small changes since ca. 2003.



Photos: NASA satellite images the Aral Sea and part of the lowland section of the Aral basin.