Aral Sea environmental issues
National Public Radio www.npr.org
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by David Stern
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14853942
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Morning Edition, October 1, 2007
In the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, government and Western officials reverse what is considered one of mankind's greatest ecological catastrophes: the drying up of the Aral Sea. A recently built dam is restoring part of the sea — once the world's fourth-largest inland body of water — and life to its surrounding communities.
by Anne Garrels
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1025877
Morning Edition, May 22, 1998
In the last of a five-part series on fresh water shortages, NPR's Anne Garrels reports from Uzbekistan, where one of the largest inland seas -- the Aral of Central Asia -- is suffering massive degradation.
One of the worst examples of a manmade natural disaster: the unstoppable shrinking of the Aral Sea...
...swimming in the Aral Sea as a child. He remembers when Munyak was a thriving port and popular resort. Now half the size it once was, the Aral Sea is more than 70 miles away.
by Mike Shuster
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1041637
All Things Considered, December 9, 1996
It's been five years since the collapse of the Soviet Union
but it will take many more years to undue much of the ecological damage done
during Soviet rule. Case in point: one of the greatest environmental disasters
in the world today is the drying up of the Aral Sea in central Asia. In the
1950s, when the Soviets decided to increase their cotton crop, two rivers that
flowed into the Aral Sea were used to irrigate the cotton fields of Uzbekistan
and Turkmenistan; the flow of water to the Aral Sea was reduced by ninety
percent with disastrous results. NPR's Mike Shuster visits an Uzbek town that
used to one of the Aral Sea's biggest ports--now the sea is thirty miles away
and the town of Mujnak (Moy-NAHK) is plagued by both massive unemployment and
serious health problems brought on by the Aral's demise.
…two rivers that flowed into the Aral Sea were used to irrigate the cotton fields of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan; the flow of water to the Aral Sea was reduced by ninety percent with…
Related story:
by John Ydstie
...are looking carefully would be the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan and in Kazakhstan, which has been shrinking and is now about half the size that it used to be. Another example that...