ARAL SEA POLLUTION, CARBON EMISSIONS, SALT STORMS, HEALTH ISSUES

POLLUTION AND THE ARAL SEA

salty land left behind as the Aral Sea dries up

Wastelands have been created on the salt-encrusted sea bed where the water has disappeared from the Aral Sea and unusable agricultural areas contaminated fertilizer, pesticide and defoliates sits idle. Salt and chemicals and sewage have also contaminated groundwater supplies. By one estimate only 20 percent of the people living in the area along the Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan border have access to safe drinking water.

Huge dust storms that kick up from time pick up residues and corrosive salts and fertilizer and pesticide chemicals in the wastelands and carry them near and far, affected millions of people living in the general area around the sea. The toxic dust settled in layers on plants, huts, animals and people and is associated with declines of wild animals and crop losses. Large areas of agricultural land are unusable. Of the 170 or so wild animals once found in and around the sea, only 40 remain.

Martin Fletcher wrote in The Times, “The desiccated seabed was carpeted with a toxic sediment of salt laced with chemicals from the cotton fields, which duststorms then deposited over thousands of square miles. Drinking water was poisoned. [Source: Martin Fletcher, The Times, June 23, 2007 ]

Mark Synnott wrote in National Geographic: “ Besides toxic levels of sodium chloride, the dust is laced with pesticides such as DDT, hexachlorocyclohexane, toxaphene, and phosalone—all known carcinogens. The chemicals have worked their way into every level of the food chain. [Source: Mark Synnott, National Geographic, June 2015 +/]

According to the New York Times: “Without the mitigating effect of the wind blowing across the water, summers are hotter and winters colder throughout the region. ...Climate change has also intensified the scarcity of water. The glaciers in the mountains of Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan that feed the two rivers are shrinking. Of all the water that flows into the Amu Darya from the Pamir Mountains, less than 10 percent reaches the Aral Sea. The parched sea, now shrunk to around 10 percent of its original surface area, is 95 feet shallower and so brackish that it no longer supports fish or much life. [Source: Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times, August 9, 2018]

History of Pollution and the Aral Sea

plumed produced by an Aral Sea salt and dust storm

Eve Conant wrote in Discover magazine: Like the Great Salt Lake in Utah, the Aral Sea has no naturally occurring outlets and over time collects salt from river deposits. With less water flowing in, the process accelerated. By the late 1980s, 10,424 square miles of seafloor had become desert and was layered with toxic salts. Water salinity had risen from 10 grams per liter in the 1950s, when the sea was healthy, to about 26 grams per liter in 1990. (At 35 grams per liter, it would be as salty as the ocean.) All 24 species of fish disappeared. The water "wasn't quite salt paste yet, but nothing could survive in it," says Masood Ahmad of the World Bank, who was project leader for the massive undertaking in Kazakhstan. "No biological life was possible." [Source: Eve Conant, Discover, September 2006 |=|]

“The effects rippled throughout the region. Without this source of food or water, only a few dozen of the 180 known native land-animal species survived the desiccation. When the fishing industry collapsed in the 1980s, thousands of locals fled their villages to search for a new life in larger cities. Those remaining behind eked out an existence on the land. Tuberculosis reached epidemic proportions, and infant mortality rates quadrupled, with acute respiratory diseases accounting for 50 percent of the deaths. Potable water became scarce throughout the area, and even breathing the air was risky. Chemical runoff from agricultural fields simply dried on the seafloor and was ferried back into towns with the first winds. |=|

“By 1990 the shrinking waters had separated into two parts—the northern "Small Sea" in Kazakhstan and the southern "Large Sea" in neighboring Uzbekistan. As the seas evaporated, hard-packed sand replaced water around the hundreds of islands that had dotted the sea and had provided a haven for wildlife. When the waters vanished around Vozrozhdeniya Island, a Soviet germ-warfare facility for open-air testing of anthrax, plague, and smallpox in the southern Aral Sea, U.S. officials in 2000 became so worried that they sent funds and experts to clean up buried stockpiles of the remaining lethal bacteria. In 2002 the U.N. estimated that winds carried 200,000 tons of salt and toxic sand each day throughout the Aral Sea region and thousands of miles beyond, sometimes reaching as far as Russia's Arctic north—a problem that still continues. "Everything is polluted with herbicides, metals, and salt," says the Aralsk regional hospital's head doctor, Arginbau Asanbaev. Experts believe the ecological disaster has displaced more than 100,000 people and affected the health of more than 5 million people throughout the region. |=|

Health, Disease and the Aral Sea

The toxic dust and salty grit from the dry lake bed carried by the dust storms is linked with increases in birth defects, typhus, cholera, gastritis, respiratory and eyes disorders, tuberculosis, childhood anemia, various kinds cancers and one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world. Some women have as many as 10 miscarriages.

People exposed regularly to the dust have high rates of anemia, goiter, respiratory diseases, throat cancer, kidney and liver problems, and stomach and intestinal ailments. In some places 85 percent of all people have anemia. The rates of cancer of the esophagus are among the highest in the world. Children gets rickets from poor nutrition. One study found high levels of DNA damage which may be linked to the high cancer rates.

The high infant mortality rates are often linked with the high rates of anemia among women who drink water with sand and stones. which accumulates in the kidneys and causes lose of blood during urination, They don’t eat enough protein to compensate for the blood lose. As a result the women become anemic and give birth to stillborn or handicapped babies. Studies found that 40 percent of the people that live in the Aral Sea area suffer from kidney disease linked to salinization.

Martin Fletcher wrote in The Times, “ Even today, 29 per cent of local people suffer from respiratory illnesses, and 47 per cent of women of fertile age suffer from blood diseases such as anaemia. Rates of cancer, miscarriages, infant mortality, birth defects, tuberculosis, kidney and skin diseases have soared. Mark Synnott wrote in National Geographic: “ Besides toxic levels of sodium chloride, the dust is laced with pesticides such as DDT, hexachlorocyclohexane, toxaphene, and phosalone—all known carcinogens. The chemicals have worked their way into every level of the food chain. Today Karakalpakstan registers esophageal cancer rates 25 times as high as the world average. Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is a major problem, and respiratory diseases, cancers, birth defects, and immunological disorders are widespread. [Source: Mark Synnott, National Geographic, June 2015; Martin Fletcher, The Times, June 23, 2007]

Vozrozhdeniya Island

A top-secret facility on Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea was the world’s largest biological weapons testing ground and was one of the primary testing grounds for Russia's biological weapons using anthrax and other diseases. The island contains pens that held thousand of animals—rabbits, guinea pigs, monkeys, sheep, donkeys, mice, hamsters, horses and baboons—that were used in testing. Around 1,500 people lived there at its height. [Source: Christopher Pala, New York Times Magazine, January 12, 2002 |:|]

Mark Synnott wrote in National Geographic: Located on Vozrozhdeniya Island — which, now that the sea is gone, is no longer an island—the facility was the main test site for the Soviet military’s Microbiological Warfare Group. Thousands of animals were shipped to the island, where they were subjected to anthrax, smallpox, plague, brucellosis, and other biological agents. The U.S. State Department, concerned that rusting drums of anthrax could fall into the wrong hands, sent a cleanup team there in 2002. No biological agents have been found in the dust since then, but sporadic outbreaks of plague afflict the surrounding region. [Source: Mark Synnott, National Geographic, June 2015 +/]

Much the testing involved giving disease-causing agents to animals. Lepyoshkin told the New York Times, “We used monkeys, about 200 to 300 each year. Our staff would take them out to the range”—25 kilometers from the town—“and they would put them in cages next to devises that the measured the concentration of germs in the air. Then after they were exposed, they would be taken to the labs, where we would test the labs, where we would test their blood and monitor the development of a disease in them. They would die within weeks, and we would perform autopsies..” The testing was usually only done in the summer when temperatures sore to 120 degrees F to prevent the spread of the pathogens. |:|

Aral Sea Area Emits Large Amount of Carbon Dioxide

A study published in the journal Science found that the shrinking of the Aral Sea released an estimated 748 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere between 1960 and 2022 — an amount is roughly three times Spain's annual carbon dioxide emissions.. Researchers said the emissions resulted from the drying of the lake, which was largely caused by human diversion of the rivers that once fed it. [Source: Yale Environment 360, July 18, 2026]

Although commonly called a sea, the Aral Sea is technically a lake. Lakes normally act as carbon sinks because organic material accumulates in bottom sediments, where carbon can remain stored for hundreds or thousands of years. "They accumulate carbon in the sediment," said Rafael Marcé, a research scientist at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Blanes, Spain, and lead author of the study. "They are carbon sinks."

When lakes dry out, however, stored carbon is exposed and released into the atmosphere, turning carbon sinks into carbon sources. Marcé said his team expected to find evidence of carbon emissions at the Aral Sea but was surprised by the scale of the release. "We didn't go to the Aral Sea blind. We had some previous evidence," he said. "We had no idea about the potential magnitude."

The gradual retreat of the Aral Sea created a record of its drying process. Some parts of the lakebed were exposed decades ago, while other areas remained underwater until more recent years. Researchers collected sediment samples from areas representing different stages of exposure, allowing them to estimate how much carbon dioxide had been released as the lake shrank. Marcé said carbon release occurs most rapidly soon after lakebed sediments are exposed. "At the beginning it goes pretty fast, then it slowly decays," he said. The study found that about half of the total carbon dioxide emissions are released within the first 15 years after an area dries out.

Researchers also found that nearly 20 percent of the emissions came from wind erosion that carried carbon-rich sediments into the atmosphere. Scientists said this process has received relatively little attention in previous studies. "This dust is a really big issue," said Sarian Kosten, an aquatic ecologist and professor at Radboud University who was not involved in the research. She described the study as scientifically sound and said the continued shrinkage of the Aral Sea was troubling. "I always find it very sad to see these pictures of the declining water surface there," she said.

The researchers noted that fieldwork conditions limited the depth of sediment samples they could collect. Their sediment cores reached only about 50 centimeters (20 inches), even though the former lakebed contains much deeper sediment layers. As a result, the study may not capture all carbon releases occurring below the sampled depths. "It could be that all these degradation effects are contained in the first layers," Marcé said. Alternatively, he added, "all these carbon calculations we did could be a gross underestimate." The research team plans to return with larger drilling equipment to investigate deeper sediments.

The study estimated that approximately 605 million metric tons of carbon dioxide remain stored in sediments that could still be released as the Aral Sea continues to dry. The authors argued that protecting remaining carbon stocks could help reduce future emissions. According to the study, preventing the release of this remaining carbon would be equivalent to preserving about US$18 billion worth of carbon credits.

Aral Sea Salt Storms

The shrinking of the Aral Sea has created a vast expanse of exposed seabed that is vulnerable to wind erosion. Strong winds regularly lift salt, sand, dust, and chemical residues from the former lakebed and carry them across large areas of Central Asia. These storms can reduce visibility, damage crops, and spread pollutants over hundreds of miles.[Source: Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times, August 9, 2018]

One severe storm struck the former port town of Muynak in western Uzbekistan in 2018, with winds blowing large amounts of salt and silt from the dried seabed, creating a thick haze that covered the town. Residents reported that salt coated buildings, vehicles, and vegetation, while some crops suffered damage from salty rainfall.

The New York Times reported: For three days, the tempest hurled silt off the former seabed of the Aral Sea. It blotted out the sky and left the residents of the former port, Muynak, in western Uzbekistan, chewing salty grit. Even the rain turned brackish, sending panicked farmers scrambling to rescue crops. Vladimir Zuev, a retired Russian pilot turned tour operator, told the New York Times: “It was impossible to see. The salt was dry, yet it adhered to the skin and was difficult to wipe off. You could barely wash it off with water.” The flowers in his garden withered. Ecologist Gileyboi Zhyemuratov said “When you opened the door, everything was white like snow.

Scientists and environmental experts regard these storms as one of the most serious consequences of the Aral Sea's decline. The exposed seabed contains not only salt but also residues from agricultural chemicals that accumulated over decades. Windborne particles can affect soil quality, water supplies, and human health.

Health concerns linked to salt and dust storms include respiratory illnesses, eye irritation, and other medical problems. Environmental organizations warn that the problem could worsen as more of the former seabed becomes exposed. The storms demonstrate that the environmental effects of the Aral Sea disaster continue long after the water has disappeared.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Aral Sea Crisis by Columbia University

Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, U.S. government, Compton’s Encyclopedia, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Foreign Policy, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, and various books, websites and other publications.

Last updated June 2026