User:Iambeaver/sandbox/Aral Sea Basin

Introduction
The Aral Sea used to be the 4th largest lake on the world. It is located at the intersection of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in Central Asia. The river basin of Aral Sea runs across a large area of majority of Central Asian' countries includes Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan AND Turkmenistan. It also runs across a small area of northwestern part of China and part of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The water supply of Aral Sea mainly relies on the nearby inland rivers such as Amu Darya and Syr Darya.



Countries across the Basin
The Aral Sea Basin covered 1,233,403 square kilometers and nearly 47 million population. All the countries that the Aral Sea Basin covered are developing countries that located in Central Asia, also includes a small part of northwestern China. Outside parts of northwestern China, Pakistan and Kazakhstan, the rest of the areas have a medium to high population density.

Climates
The characters of the climates through Aral Sea Basin are cold and dry in winter and the summer lasts short. The top two types of climate of this region are Tundra and Temperate Desert Climate.

Discharge
The Aral Sea Basin covered over 1.2 million square kilometers, it has a total discharge volume of 104.7905 cubic kilometers per year. However, the distribution of the discharge volume by countries are highly varied. Afghanistan contributes the most, with 35.9526 cubic kilometers, Kyrgyzstan comes the second, with 24.5353 cubic kilometers and 23.4870 cubic kilometers for each of Tajikistan. Turkmenistan contributes the least with only 1.861630 cubic kilometers.

Water Usage
The major civil activity through Aral Sea Basin are irrigation. Over the 1.2 million square kilometers covered area, 26.93% of the land are irrigated. Uzbekistan comes with the highest irrigated rate at 39.99%.
 * Civil Usage

Across the 1.2 million square kilometers' covered area, there are 10 built dams, 4 of them located in Uzbekistan, 3 for Tajikistan, 2 for Kyrgyzstan and 1 for Kazakhstan. Also there are a few projects located in this area.
 * Constructions and Dams

Water Stress
Although the Aral Sea Basin has a total discharge of 104.7905 cubic kilometers each year, the area is located in the semi-arid climate region, thereby the annual amounts of water evaporates and runoff are high. At this area, the average annual surface runoff are 45.4 meters. Due to the high level of evaporation and surface runoff of water, most of the Aral Sea Basin area are under severe water stress. Especially Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, a person per year faces 400 to 500 cubic meters water shortage. The table below shows the water stress level of different countries across Aral Sea Basin.

Environmental Concerns
As known, the Aral Sea Basin area are experiencing much more severe environmental issues than ever. The water level of Aral Sea has declined for over 20 meters in the last 50 years and over 90% of the area of Aral Sea shrank due to the unlimited extraction of water. Furthermore, more serious consequences has occurred, the level of the salinity rose from 10g/m^3 to approximately 100g/m^3, the salts goes onto the land, which results in the salinity of soils and then contributes to the devastation of the local ecology system.



Water Management and Treaties
The issues of Aral Sea Basin area is a broad issues that involves several countries. There are 12 treaties between Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Iambeaver (talk) 05:44, 2 October 2016 (UTC)