|
The Aral Sea ( ''Aral Teñizi''; (モンゴル語:Арал тэнгис); ; (タジク語:Баҳри Арал) ''Bahri Aral''; older (ペルシア語:دریای خوارزم) ''Daryâ-ye Khârazm'') was an endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan (Aktobe and Kyzylorda Regions) in the north and Uzbekistan (Karakalpakstan autonomous region) in the south. The name roughly translates as "Sea of Islands", referring to over 1,100 islands that once dotted its waters; in Mongolian ''aral'' means "island". The Aral Sea drainage basin encompasses Uzbekistan and parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan. Formerly one of the four largest lakes in the world with an area of , the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects. By 2007, it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into four lakes – the North Aral Sea, the eastern and western basins of the once far larger South Aral Sea, and one smaller lake between the North and South Aral Seas. By 2009, the southeastern lake had disappeared and the southwestern lake had retreated to a thin strip at the extreme west of the former southern sea; in subsequent years, occasional water flows have led to the southeastern lake sometimes being replenished to a small degree. Satellite images taken by NASA in August 2014 revealed that for the first time in modern history the eastern basin of the Aral Sea had completely dried up. The eastern basin is now called the Aralkum desert. In an ongoing effort in Kazakhstan to save and replenish the North Aral Sea, a dam project was completed in 2005; in 2008, the water level in this lake had risen by compared to 2003. Salinity has dropped, and fish are again found in sufficient numbers for some fishing to be viable. The maximum depth of the North Aral Sea is (as of 2008). The shrinking of the Aral Sea has been called "one of the planet's worst environmental disasters".〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Information about Aral Sea )〕 The region's once-prosperous fishing industry has been essentially destroyed, bringing unemployment and economic hardship. The Aral Sea region is also heavily polluted, with consequential serious public health problems. ==Formation== The Aral Sea formed about 5.5 million years ago due to a fall in sea level and the uplift of the Elburz and Caucasus Mountains. It is generally believed that the Amu Darya did not flow into the shallow depression that now forms the Aral Sea until the beginning of the Holocene,〔Middleton, Nick; “The Aral Sea”; in Shahgedanova Maria; ''The Physical Geography of Northern Eurasia''; pp. 497-498〕 and it is known that the Amu Darya flowed into the Caspian Sea via the Uzboy channel until the Holocene.〔 The Syr Darya formed a large lake in the Kyzyl Kum during the Pliocene known as the Mynbulak depression〔Velichko, Andrey and Spasskaya, Irina; “Climatic Change and the Development of Landscapes”; in Shahgedanova Maria; ''The Physical Geography of Northern Eurasia''; pp. 48-50〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Aral Sea」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|