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The Aral Sea was an endorheic salt lake lying between Kazakhstan to its north and Uzbekistan to its south, which began shrinking in the 1960s and had largely dried up into desert by 2007.

The Aral Sea drainage basin encompasses Uzbekistan and parts of Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Formerly the third-largest lake in the world with an area of 68,000 km2 (26,300 sq mi), the Aral Sea began shrinking in 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 the smaller intermediate Barsakelmes Lake. Satellite images 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. In a Kazakhstani effort to save and replenish the North Aral Sea, the Dike Kokaral dam was completed in 2005. After the visit to Muynak in 2011, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called the shrinking of the Aral Sea "one of the planet's worst environmental disasters". The Aral Sea region is heavily polluted, with consequent serious public health problems. UNESCO has added historical documents concerning the Aral Sea to its Memory of the World Register as a resource to study the environmental tragedy.

The Amu Darya river flowed into the Caspian Sea via the Uzboy Channel until the Holocene, when its course changed to feed the Aral Sea from the south. Today the Amu Darya does not reach the Aral Sea, and its mouth is in a dried-up area of what was once the Aral Sea.

Geologically driven shifts in the course of the Amu Darya between the Aral Sea and the Sarykamysh basins and anthropogenic water withdrawal from Amu Darya and Syr Darya have caused fluctuations in the Aral Sea's water level. According to Sergey Tolstov's theory, once Amu Darya was connected to Caspian sea, but this connection was broken by people 2500 years ago to feed the Aral Sea and irrigation system in Khorezm, more precisely in Khiva and other cities in this region.

By 2010, the large Aral was 27 m and the small Aral 43 m above sea level. In 1987, the lake split into two separate bodies of water: the North Aral Sea (the Lesser Sea, or Small Aral Sea) and the South Aral Sea (the Greater Sea, or Large Aral Sea). A plan was announced for the recovery of the North Aral Sea by building Dike Kokaral, a concrete dam separating the two halves of the Aral Sea.

Pumping sea water into the Aral Sea from the Caspian Sea via a pipeline, and diluting it with fresh water from local catchment areas

The largest project in this phase is the North Aral Sea Project, a direct effort to recover the northern region of the Aral Sea. The North Aral Sea Project's main initiative is the construction of a dam across the Berg Strait, a deep channel which connects the North Aral Sea to the South Aral Sea. The Kok-Aral Dam is 13 kilometres (8 miles) long and has capacity for over 29 cubic kilometres of water to be stored in the North Aral Sea, whilst allowing excess to overflow into the South Aral Sea.

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 dike.

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

Vozrozhdeniya (Russian for rebirth) Island is a former island of the Aral Sea or South Aral Sea.

Quick Facts

• In 1987, the lake split into two separate bodies of water: the North Aral Sea (the Lesser Sea, or Small Aral Sea) and the South Aral Sea (the Greater Sea, or Large Aral Sea).
• The North Aral Sea Project's main initiative is the construction of a dam across the Berg Strait, a deep channel which connects the North Aral Sea to the South Aral Sea.
• 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 the smaller intermediate Barsakelmes Lake.
• Today the Amu Darya does not reach the Aral Sea, and its mouth is in a dried-up area of what was once the Aral Sea.
• The largest project in this phase is the North Aral Sea Project, a direct effort to recover the northern region of the Aral Sea.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Aral Sea". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.