Shrinking Aral Sea, 2000-2016 In the 1960s, the Soviet Union undertook a major water diversion project on the arid plains of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The region’s two major rivers, fed by snowmelt and precipitation in faraway mountains, were used to transform the desert into farms for cotton and other crops. Before the project, the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya rivers flowed down from the mountains, cut northwest through the Kyzylkum Desert, and finally pooled together in the lowe

Sixty years ago, the Aral Sea thrived. Now, fishing fleets lie stranded in the sand, victims of Soviet irrigation. People watched their livelihoods slowly disappear as rivers dried up. Today, the Aral Sea faces extinction. #AralSea #EnvironmentalDisaster #Uzbekistan #SovietUnion #WaterCrisis #EcologicalDamage From: Alexander's Lost World S1 Ep1 | Odyssey - Ancient History