Crossword clues for aral sea
Wiktionary
n. A saline lake straddle the Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan border, that was once large, but that has shrunk to a quarter of its original size after the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, which previously flowed into it, were diverted for irrigation purposes during the Soviet era.
Wikipedia
The Aral Sea ( Aral Teñizi; ; ; Bahri Aral; older Daryâche Khârazm; ) was an endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan ( Aktobe and Kyzylorda Regions) in the north and Uzbekistan ( Karakalpakstan autonomous region) in the south. The name roughly translates as "Sea of Islands", referring to over 1,100 islands that once dotted its waters; in the Turkic languages aral means "island, archipelago". The Aral Sea drainage basin encompasses Uzbekistan and parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan.
Formerly one of the four largest lakes in the world with an area of , the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects. By 2007, it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into four lakes – the North Aral Sea, the eastern and western basins of the once far larger South Aral Sea, and one smaller lake between the North and South Aral Seas. By 2009, the southeastern lake had disappeared and the southwestern lake had retreated to a thin strip at the western edge of the former southern sea; in subsequent years, occasional water flows have led to the southeastern lake sometimes being replenished to a small degree. Satellite images taken by NASA in August 2014 revealed that for the first time in modern history the eastern basin of the Aral Sea had completely dried up. The eastern basin is now called the Aralkum Desert.
In an ongoing effort in Kazakhstan to save and replenish the North Aral Sea, a dam project was completed in 2005; in 2008, the water level in this lake had risen by compared to 2003. Salinity has dropped, and fish are again found in sufficient numbers for some fishing to be viable. The maximum depth of the North Aral Sea is .
The shrinking of the Aral Sea has been called "one of the planet's worst environmental disasters". The region's once-prosperous fishing industry has been essentially destroyed, bringing unemployment and economic hardship. The Aral Sea region is also heavily polluted, with consequential serious public health problems.
Usage examples of "aral sea".
Half-way across Russia, through Astrakhan, over the Aral Sea (Caspian, too, as a matter of fact) and across the Hindu Kush - old country to me, of course.
The programme between newscasts was about the disappearance of the Aral Sea.
What else would you expect of the people who turned the Aral Sea into the Aral Pond .
He took a small apartment with a view of the Aral Sea and spent hours watching the steppe wind as it scudded across the water.
I was at some point introduced to Rashid Nugmanov, a young Kazakh director who had made IGLA (The Needle) with Victor Tsoi, a dramatic feature shot (I believe) in Rashid's hometown of Alma Ata, and in the Aral Sea (or what used to be the Aral Sea -- source of the dead zone Cayce walks through in PATTERN RECOGNITION).
It was lost in Soviet central Asia, a couple of hundred miles east of the Aral Sea.
Local communist authorities, without consulting one expert, had built or enlarged several irrigation canals to plant cotton, completely draining the already heavily polluted Aral Sea, and creating one of the worst ecological disasters of the 1980s.
Timur was glad to receive him, as this royal Mongol might prove useful, and gave him three cities: Otrar, Sabran, and Signakhi on the north bank of the Syr Darya, the northern of two rivers feeding into the Aral Sea.