is a biblical disaster,” says Professor Nikolay Aladin, an Aral Sea ex-

pert with the Brackish Water Hydrobiology Lab in St. Petersburg.

“It is really unbelievable what has happened here in just thirty to

forty years.”

It’s hard to imagine that the Aral once hosted a thriving ecosys-

tem chock-full of birds, fish, and other fauna. Much of the original

shoreline was surrounded by thick reed beds teeming with life.

“The coastal zone around the Aral Sea was a paradise for wildlife,”

T h e A r a l E x p e r i m e n t

27

Fig. 2.2. The Aral Sea has lost 90 percent of its volume and 75 percent of its

surface area since 1960. (Philip Micklin, Department of Geography, Western

Michigan University)