KazCham

AramcoWorld

In October 2014, the us National Aeronautic and Space Administration (nasa) released images of the Aral Sea taken by its Terra satellite. These were among the first to show the South Aral Sea’s entire eastern basin as bone-dry—a dramatic difference from a similar image taken in August 2000. “This is the first time the eastern basin has completely dried in modern times,” said geographer and Aral Sea expert Philip Micklin of Western Michigan University. “And it is likely the first time it has completely dried in 600 years, since the medieval desiccation associated with diversion of Amu Darya to the Caspian Sea.”

Aral, population just above 30,000, is the largest town on the northeast shore of the North Aral Sea, and some 73,000 people remain living in the surrounding region. Here, explained Darmenov, the Kazakh government and World Bank must work together with the Syr Darya river to save the sea. The river is the sea’s sole source of replenishment, and its fate is still largely determined by cyclical rainfall patterns, as well as snowmelt from the distant Tien Shan Mountains.

In 1976, according to a historical marker at the once-thriving port, Aral shipped 5,000 metric tons of wool, 340 furs, 3,000 sheepskins, 1,500 pairs of woolen gloves and 1,200 pairs of woolen trousers. Now, the tourists who stop by here can climb aboard the Lev Berg, a fishing boat painted bright blue, and look out over the desertified lakebed. Two rusting cranes that have not been used since the early 1980s hulk above the otherwise flat horizon.

But the waters that by the early 2000s had retreated 100 kilometers from Aral are now only 20 kilometers away, and they are coming closer.

“We inherited the problem of the Aral Sea from the Soviet Union, but as soon as we became independent, we adopted special programs,” said Zhanbolat Ussenov, director of the Eurasian Council on Foreign Affairs and former spokesman at Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry.

“We of course understood that we wouldn’t be able to save the sea on our own— from neither a financial nor an expertise point of view—so we created an International Save the Aral fund,” Ussenov explained. “We invited the World Bank and individual countries to help us with this environmental catastrophe. And I’m happy to say that today the Aral Sea is slowly returning to its original boundaries.”

The dream of saving the entire Aral Sea – both North and South – is unrealistic, said experts who know the region. But everyone seemed to agree that the first phase of the project Ussenov alluded to – officially known as the Syr Darya Control and Northern Aral Sea Project, or synas-1 – has been a success so far.

Ahmed Shawky M. Abdel-Ghany, a senior water-resources specialist with the European and Central Asian region of the World Bank’s Water Global Practice, has managed the project from his Washington office since late 2010. He said synas-1 cost $83 million, and it included a subproject for restoration of the North Aral Sea.

“We’re not talking about the whole Aral Sea, just the northern part that fully lies in Kazakhstan,” said the Egyptian civil engineer, who’s worked in 20 countries during his 12-year career with the World Bank.

He said that one crucial element of synas-1, construction in 2005 of the 13-kilometer-long Kok-Aral Dam, increased the volume of water in the North Aral Sea by around 50 percent in three years.

“The northern Aral Sea was initially [in 2005] 38 meters above sea level. Now it could reach around 42 meters,” said the engineer. “As a consequence, salinity in the NAS has been reduced by around half, but all these numbers are subject to the hydrological variables that change every year.”