THERE is a running joke in the Kazakh town of Aralsk: 鈥淚f everyone who came to study the Aral Sea brought a bucket of water, it would be full by now.鈥�
The people of Aralsk don鈥檛 generally have much to joke about but in this case they might have a point. Since the Aral Sea began to dry up in the 1960s and Aralsk waved goodbye to its beach, harbour and fishing industry, a constant stream of foreign scientists have come to shake their heads and ponder one of the biggest man-made disasters in the world. There has been no shortage of ideas and sympathy, but so far no one has managed to bring the sea back for good.
Now, after nearly four decades in the desert, the people of Aralsk may finally have something to smile about. Last month an international team of engineers began an ambitious but controversial engineering project funded by the World Bank which aims to bring back the Aral Sea once and for all.
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Until 1960 the Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake in the world. In those days it covered an area almost the size of Ireland and took up to four days to cross by ferry. The sea had a thriving fishing industry and its wetlands supported a huge diversity of wildlife, with many species unique to the region. Rainfall in this part of Central Asia is relatively light, so the Aral Sea was maintained by two feeder rivers: the Amudarya, which translates as mother river, in the south and the Syrdarya, father river, in the north.
Before the 1950s the catchment was more or less managed in its natural state, and the two rivers were only tapped for low-level agriculture. But this changed when the communist leaders in Moscow ordered 70,000 square kilometres of cotton monoculture across the delta 鈥� an area now shared by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Cotton is notoriously thirsty and the only way to provide enough water to irrigate the crops was to divert the Syrdarya and Amudarya.
By 1988, the region was criss-crossed with 700,000 kilometres of irrigation channels taking water destined for the Aral Sea and pouring it, along with a hefty dose of pesticides, onto the cotton fields. Some of these channels were huge: the biggest is the still-unfinished Karakum Canal, which stretches 1370 kilometres into the Turkmenistan Desert. But the irrigation channels, and their routes, were designed badly. For example, the water diverted to the Karakum ends up in the Caspian Sea, not the Aral. The channels themselves leaked, and because they were left open a lot of the water simply evaporated away.
Unsurprisingly, the Aral Sea began to shrink, eventually splitting into two, leaving the South Aral shared between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and the smaller North Aral in Kazakhstan (see Diagram). As the waters retreated, by as much as 75 kilometres in places, they left behind a salty wasteland loaded with lethal pesticides brought in by the rivers. The climate became hostile, with freezing winters and scorching summers, and savage windstorms carried toxic dust across the delta. Today, infant mortality in the region is among the highest in the world, lung disease and cancers are common, and tuberculosis and typhoidplague the population.
The drop in sea level also affected the local wildlife. As the wetlands dried up, fish and birds were left with nowhere to go. Meanwhile the rising salinity killed off many fish species that were only found in the Aral Sea 鈥� devastating a unique ecosystem and the region鈥檚 economy. The fishing boats of Aralsk now lie stranded in a desert that used to be their harbour. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan inherited an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe, yet had little money to sort it out.
By the early 1990s the collective chin scratching had led to two conclusions. First, the Amudarya contributed so little water that the South Aral would most probably carry on shrinking and eventually dry up completely. Second, the North Aral could be saved, but only with massive investment and a coordinated international effort. Matters came to a head when the then mayor of Aralsk took matters into his own hands and ordered a huge pile of sand to be stacked up across the strait that still joined the North Aral Sea to the South.
The idea was to prevent precious water from the Syrdarya seeping into the South Aral, where it would be lost. Although the dam was washed away and rebuilt several times before it was finally abandoned in 1999, it proved that a dam could increase the water level of the North Aral Sea, reduce the salinity and create a sustainable fishery. The World Bank was impressed, and in June 2001 it approved a loan of $64 million to build a more permanent dam along with a whole system of artificial barriers to control the flow of water along the Syrdarya. The government of Kazakhstan stumped up the remaining $21 million needed to complete the project. Consultants Mott MacDonald, based in London, and Temelsu, based in Turkey, were awarded the contract and began work on the project last April. Construction was pencilled in to start in December 2002.
The idea is to make the Syrdarya River all things to all people and leave enough water to refill the North Aral Sea. This is no small task. The river is 150 metres wide in places and the artificial barriers will have to be enormous 鈥� the dam separating North from South Aral will be 12.7 kilometres long.
The first area to tackle is the Toktogul Reservoir in Kyrgyzstan, where river water is used to generate power. Water that should be flowing to the Aral Sea is often wasted because of conflicts of interest between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. 鈥淚n a world where everything is equal you would use the water released from Toktogul to provide energy in Kyrgyzstan and for irrigation in Kazakhstan, but the two aren鈥檛 necessarily compatible,鈥� says Mike Haigh, project director for Mott MacDonald. For example, in winter, when Kyrgyzstan releases water from Toktogul to generate electricity and there is little or no irrigation downstream, the water tries to go down the Syrdarya. But ice floes often block the river in winter, and the water spills over the bank and is lost. To prevent this, the Chardara Dam, just across the border in Kazakhstan, must be improved so that water released from Toktogul can be stored until the ice melts.
Much of the project will simply repair structures that are already in place. Over the past 30 years, budget cuts in the national water resources agencies have led to the deterioration of the Chardara Dam, along with all the other barrages on the Syrdarya River. At Chardara, the dam gates are broken, holes are appearing in the dam wall, and the outlet to the Syrdarya is operating at only 40 per cent capacity. The deterioration is so great that some parts of the dam are dangerous.
Hundreds of kilometres downstream, barrages at Kazalinsk and Kyzylorda are in a similarly sorry state. The sluice gates, seals and part of the walls have perished, and the steel cables of the sluice hoists have deteriorated so that they can only be operated manually. The collecting pools upstream and downstream of the barrages are badly eroded, as is the river bed 鈥� which is now ten metres lower than when the barrages were built. The barrages will have to be reinforced to compensate for these changes.
The only part of the project to be built pretty much from scratch is the dyke that will permanently separate the North Aral from its diminishing sister, and hopefully restore it to somewhere near its former glory. The dyke will be built on the remains of the sand embankment and have a gated concrete spillway to release any excess water into the South Aral. This should prevent the uncontrolled floods that thwarted the previous attempts to divide the two seas.
Haigh believes it will be possible to stabilise water levels in the North Aral Sea at between 39 and 42 metres within ten years, around 10 metres higher than they are now. According to Trevor Tanton, a researcher at the University of Southampton who has modelled the Aral Sea Basin, this is a realistic goal. 鈥淭he sea level will rise very quickly. It鈥檚 hard to say how many years exactly 鈥� it could take three good years or ten drought years, but if conditions are right the benefits will be felt very quickly,鈥� he says.
But the dyke, dams and barrages are only a small part of a programme of works across the Aral Sea Basin involving organisations from all over the world. One project, run by the Danish Society for a Living Sea and a local organisation called Aral Tenizi, has provided training and materials for catching flounder in the North Aral, a species introduced in 1979 to cope with the higher salinity levels. They hope to create a viable fishery when the sea level rises. Another scheme, run by the Natural Resources Management Project is training local governments to use the latest software to keep track of where the water is going and who is using it at any one time. Other groups are working to improve the efficiency of cotton irrigation throughout the region.
Many of the schemes aim to use technology to sustain cotton production in the basin. For some, this is totally missing the point. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like putting a Band-Aid on a problem that requires open-heart surgery,鈥� says Peter Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, in Oakland, California. 鈥淭echnology is what created the problem in the first place, using more technology isn鈥檛 necessarily the answer. Building more dams is using a 20th-century solution to a 21st-century problem.鈥� For Gleick, the only solution is to grow less cotton. 鈥淲e need to ask the question, 鈥業f we took the water and did other things with it, would it have benefits to the people living there?'鈥� he argues. 鈥淚 think the answer is yes.鈥� However, not everyone sees growing less cotton as a viable option. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 just pull the plug on the economy of a region just like that and put 30 or 40 million people out of work,鈥� says Tanton. 鈥淲e have to work with what we鈥檝e got.鈥�
What they鈥檝e got is a mainly agricultural economy, so if they want to sustain it and refill the North Aral Sea, the only real alternative is to find another crop. 鈥淭hey need to reduce cotton production by half,鈥� says Ihsan Sholji of Nottingham Trent University, 鈥渂ut to do that they have to find an alternative that is financially viable.鈥� Sholji has calculated that in terms of $ per hectare potatoes would be four times as profitable as cotton. Apples would be six times as profitable as cotton, and both would save about 20,000 cubic metres of water per hectare. Such a huge change would take time, but the current situation is forcing authorities in the region to listen.
Regardless of the ultimate fate of the cotton fields, there is one issue that hangs in the balance. Sharing a resource among a growing population that spans five nations is fine when there is enough, but what if it is scarce? What if there are 10 years of drought and the upstream countries refuse to release water to their neighbours? What if, in desperation, the downstream countries retaliate by trying to take control of Toktogul Reservoir? The United Nations recently predicted that by 2032, tensions over water supplies would escalate as more people live in areas deprived of water, and these tensions may tip over into war.
Under Soviet rule, the delta was managed with irrigation as the top priority, and electricity generation was a bonus. Coal, gas and oil from what is now Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan was shared among the whole of the Soviet Union and provided enough cheap energy for everyone. In 1992, a decade-old water-sharing agreement that reflected this emphasis on irrigation was re-ratified, but by then the region鈥檚 fossil fuels were owned by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It quickly became clear that the treaty wasn鈥檛 working. 鈥淭he upstream countries needed energy in winter but couldn鈥檛 afford to buy coal and gas, so they wanted to use the water to generate energy,鈥� says Marjory Anne Bromhead, sector manager of the World Bank鈥檚 Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Network. 鈥淭he downstream countries wanted water in the summer for irrigation but didn鈥檛 see why they should pay for their neighbours to release it in the summer.鈥� The World Bank will only fund international waterways projects where a treaty exists, so in 1998, the countries drew up an agreement aimed at solving this problem.
The agreement arranged for Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to provide upstream countries with cheap energy in winter in return for water from their reservoirs in summer. And while this seems to be working, it hasn鈥檛 been without its problems. When the summer rains come and extra river water isn鈥檛 needed, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan become reluctant to trade cheap energy for no return, and this has caused tensions in the region. Even so, Bromhead remains optimistic that the UN鈥檚 fears over water wars will not be realised in the Aral Sea delta. 鈥淭hese countries have a long history of cooperating with each other and they still have a strong common will to solve problems. It鈥檚 a better situation than in most river systems around the world鈥�. For now at least, all five nations agree that what is happening on the Syrdarya is good, and so far there have been no objections to re-ratifying the 1998 treaty when it expires next year.
If all goes well, the North Aral Sea will once again support a thriving fishing industry, the climate will begin to stabilise, wetlands and pastures will recover and health will improve. But things may not turn out so well. According to Sholji a new crisis is looming. On his last visit to the region he was told that pollution from Uzbekistan鈥檚 oil fields in Namangan may be getting into the Syrdarya River. No one knows yet how serious the pollution will be: communications are still hindered by a culture of secrecy, and Sholji鈥檚 group are waiting for funding so that they can go back to Uzbekistan to investigate. But since a significant amount of oil is thought to be getting into the river, it could cause serious problems of its own.
Only time will tell whether this latest attempt to save the Aral Sea will end the region鈥檚 water problems. For the people of Aralsk, who have waited so long for action, even the remotest prospect of returning to a normal life is something to celebrate.