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Here’s How the World Looks When We Use Up All of Our Water
November 28th, 2023
Courtesy of The New York Times, an article on the Aral Sea whose demise holds sobering lessons for our water scarce future: Walking toward the shrinking remnants of what used to be the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan was like entering hell. All around was a desert devoid of life, aside from scrubby saxaul trees. Dust […]
Read more »Reevaluating The Forgotten River Civilizations of Central Asia
October 5th, 2023
Via PNAS, an interesting paper examining the Aral Sea basin in Central Asia in which its major rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, were the center of advanced river civilizations, and a principal hub of the Silk Roads over a period of more than 2,000 y. The region’s decline has been traditionally attributed to […]
Read more »The Water Wars Coming to Central Asia
July 31st, 2023
Via Foreign Policy, a report on rising water tensions in Central Asia where the situation has been bad for decades, but the Taliban threaten to make them worse: In Turkmenistan, household faucets are running dry and locusts are devouring crops. In Kazakhstan, a state of emergency has been declared as the Caspian Sea shrinks to […]
Read more »Northern Remnant of Aral Sea Struggling to Survive
June 11th, 2023
Via Window on Eurasia, a report on challenges faced by the northern segment of the Aral Sea: Two decades ago, the World Bank provided funding to allow Kazakhstan to construct a dam isolating the northern segment of the Aral Sea in the hopes of saving it from the sad fate of the rest of that […]
Read more »Is the Aral Sea a Lost Cause?
January 31st, 2023
Via The Diplomat, a report on the Aral Sea’s desiccation amidst plummeting hopes for its revival: 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 level […]
Read more »Kazakhstan Moves to Ease Water Conflict in Central Asia
September 7th, 2021
Via Geopolitical Monitor, a report on Kazakhstan’s effort to ease water conflict in Central Asia: An early August meeting of Central Asian heads of state in Turkmenistan addressed issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic and regional consequences of renewed Taliban control of Afghanistan. Additionally, there was one interesting proposal that is quite relevant to the challenges that […]
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