User:Jcrobinsonberkeley/sandbox

= Environmental Issues in Uzbekistan = Uzbekistan is a landlocked country located in Central Asia and has many similar environmental problems as other countries in Central Asia. Uzbekistan was under the control of the Soviet Union until it disbanded in 1991. It is located north of Turkmenistan and south of Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan is easily affected by climate change because its climate is already arid and semi-arid. ). In the mid-latitude desert there are long and hot summers and mild winters and the east consists of semiarid grassland.  The terrain of Uzbekistan is primarily sandy desert with river valleys, which are used for agriculture and are heavily irrigated by the surrounding rivers.  Uzbekistan contains the natural resources of natural gas, petroleum, coal, uranium, gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc, molybdenum, and tungsten.  There are many environmental issues in Uzbekistan that include water pollution, land pollution, air pollution, and soil pollution.

Water Pollution
The “Aral Sea” has died due to poor water consumption practices in Central Asia. It is no longer a sea, but three bodies of water due to its sinking water levels. The overuse of the water flowing into the Aral Sea began during the Soviet Era when Russia controlled Uzbekistan and produced mass amounts of cotton and grain. The Aral Sea has surface inflow, but not surface outflow of water so it is a “terminal lake”. It is in the middle of the desert in Central Asia and the water levels remained consistent until the 1960s when the increased use of irrigation caused rapid salinization and evaporation of the Sea. When Uzbekistan was a member of the Soviet Union, the Russians began to heavily use the water from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers that supplied water to the Aral Sea for cotton production throughout the Russian Empire. The Uzbekistanis have also overused the water for industrial and irrigation purposes. The evaporation of the Aral Sea caused the salinity of the Aral Sea to double by 1987, which caused much of the life in the sea, including the fish, to die. This caused the loss of many jobs in the fishing industry and a large loss of biodiversity with less then half of the former species of mammals and birds existing in the area today.