Progress In Aral Sea Restoration

Construction of a dam has succeeded in partially refilling a section of the Aral Sea, which shrank by 75 percent after decades of massive water withdrawals for cotton irrigation. Completion of the $86 million Kok-Aral dam, a joint project of the World Bank and the government of Kazakhstan, has helped replenish the smaller, northern basin of the Aral Sea, which was once the world’s fourth largest inland body of water. The Kazakhstan government said that the dam, built between the northern and southern sections of the sea, has enabled the northern portion to grow 30 percent larger and 40 percent deeper in the past five years. The next phase of a $260 million restoration project will revive pasturelands poisoned by salt and dust storms from the dry lake bed. Eventually, engineers plan to funnel water from the northern basin into the larger southern section of the sea.