T HE ARAL SEA has long been a byword for ecological disaster. Once the world’s fourth-largest lake, it has been steadily ...

Lakes are an important part of any local environment, and large lakes are especially critical for things like irrigation, fishing, recreation, and even regulating the local climate. One massive body ...

The Aral Sea straddles Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and for thousands of years was fed by two major rivers, the Amu Darya and ...

This piece originally appeared in SAVEUR’s Fall/Winter 2025 issue. See more stories from Issue 205. Like many in Karakalpakstan, an autonomous republic in western Uzbekistan, Klishbay Jumanyazov ...

Ali Shadilov, left, and Anvar Saimbetov pose in front of an old boat in the area where the Aral Sea once was in Muynak, Uzbekistan, Tuesday, June 27, 2023. The Associated Press interviewed Shadilov ...

Prior to 1960, the Aral Sea was the fourth largest inland water reservoir in the planet, with a surface area of 66,900 square km. 1960 is a key date because it was the last time that the sea’s water ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The Aral Sea isn’t just an ecological nightmare — it’s a carbon bomb The Aral Sea sits between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and was ...

MUYNAK, UzbekistanMUYNAK, Uzbekistan — Weddings, school dances, music festivals — in small pockets along the Aral Sea, there are signs of life. The Aral has nearly disappeared, and the large ...

October 28, 2024 • Once one of the worlds largest inland lakes, Asia's Aral Sea has evaporated into desert, dried by Soviet era irrigation plans. One village in Kazakhstan sits on the shrinking shores ...

The drying up of the Aral Sea has made Central Asia 7% dustier in the last 30 years. Between 1984 and 2015, dust emissions from the growing desert almost doubled from 14 to 27 million tons. This is ...

Brushing the dust from his hat and lying on the floor inside his home, Ali Shadilov recalls how he and other fishermen used to laugh at town elders who warned that the enormous sea they relied on was ...

MUYNAK, UZBEKISTAN — Weddings, school dances, music festivals — in small pockets along the Aral Sea, there are signs of life. The Aral has nearly disappeared, and the large communities it once ...