论文信息 - The Aral Sea Disaster

The Aral Sea Disaster

The Aral Sea is a huge terminal lake located among the deserts of Central Asia. Over the past 10 millennia, it has repeatedly filled and dried, owing both to natural and human forces. The most recent desiccation started in the early 1960s and owes overwhelmingly to the expansion of irrigation that has drained its two tributary rivers. Lake level has fallen 23 m, area shrunk 74%, volume decreased 90%, and salinity grew from 10 to more than 100g/l, causing negative ecological changes, including decimation of native fish species, initiation of dust/salt storms, degradation of deltaic biotic communities, and climate change around the former shoreline. The population residing around the lake has also been negatively impacted. There is little hope in the foreseeable future to fully restore the Aral Sea, but measures to preserve/rehabilitate parts of the water body and the deltas are feasible.

P. Micklin

[1] P. Micklin. The fate of “Sibaral”: Soviet water politics in the Gorbachev Era , 1987 .

[2] W. Williams,et al. The Aral Sea: Recent limnological changes and their conservation significance , 1991 .

[3] P. Micklin,et al. THE ARAL CRISIS: INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE , 1992 .

[4] P. Micklin. Introductory remarks on the Aral issue , 1996 .

[5] V. N. Bortnik. Changes in the water-level and hydrological balance of the Aral Sea , 1996 .

[6] P. Micklin,et al. The Aral Sea Basin , 1996 .

[7] P. Micklin. International and Regional Responses to the Aral Crisis: An Overview of Efforts and Accomplishments , 1998 .

[8] Creeping Environmental Problems and Sustainable Development in the Aral Sea Basin: Fish population as an ecosystem component and economic object in the Aral Sea basin , 1999 .

[9] S. O'Hara,et al. Exposure to airborne dust contaminated with pesticide in the Aral Sea region , 2000, The Lancet.

[10] P. Micklin,et al. Managing water in Central Asia , 2000 .

[11] B. Lyon,et al. The Drought and Humanitarian Crisis in Central and Southwest Asia: A Climate Perspective , 2001 .

[12] Charles Seife. Atom Smasher Probes Realm of Nuclear 'Gas' , 2002, Science.

[13] P. Micklin. The Aral Sea Crisis , 2004 .

[14] P. Micklin,et al. Dying and dead seas : climatic versus anthropic causes , 2004 .

[15] C. Pala. Once a Terminal Case, the North Aral Sea Shows New Signs of Life , 2006, Science.