{"id":8559,"date":"2012-07-23T04:25:44","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T04:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/?p=8559"},"modified":"2012-07-23T04:25:44","modified_gmt":"2012-07-23T04:25:44","slug":"was-the-aral-sea-one-of-natures-mistakes-or-was-it-the-scene-of-an-environmental-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/was-the-aral-sea-one-of-natures-mistakes-or-was-it-the-scene-of-an-environmental-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"Was the Aral Sea one of &#039;nature&#039;s mistakes&#039;, or was it the scene of an environmental crime?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/aral_sea.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/aral_sea.jpg\" alt=\"Is this the site of a major environmental crime - or an enlightened development project?\" title=\"aral_sea\" width=\"775\" height=\"279\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-8560\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/aral_sea.jpg 775w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/aral_sea-300x108.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/aral_sea-768x276.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/aral_sea-624x225.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 775px) 100vw, 775px\" \/><\/a>The left photo shows, I think, the Aral Sea as it was last week. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Aral_Sea#Irrigation_canals\">Wiki <\/a>reports that &#8216;Soviet experts apparently considered the Aral to be &#8220;nature&#8217;s error&#8221;&#8230; [So] &#8216;From 1960 to 1998, the sea&#8217;s surface area shrank by approximately 60%, and its volume by 80%. In 1960, the Aral Sea had been the world&#8217;s fourth-largest lake, with an area of approximately 68,000 square kilometres (26,000 sq mi) and a volume of 1,100 cubic kilometres (260 cu mi); by 1998, it had dropped to 28,687 square kilometres (11,076 sq mi), and eighth-largest. The amount of water it had lost is the equivalent of completely draining Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Over the same time period, its salinity increased from about 10 g\/L to about 45 g\/L&#8217;. Which view is correct? The lives of those who won their living from the Aral Sea have been devastated. But the population of Uzbekistan benefits from valuable exports of cotton.<br \/>\nPS I wish Google Maps was available on aircraft, so that passengers know their exact position in relation to the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The left photo shows, I think, the Aral Sea as it was last week. Wiki reports that &#8216;Soviet experts apparently considered the Aral to be &#8220;nature&#8217;s error&#8221;&#8230; [So] &#8216;From 1960 to 1998, the sea&#8217;s surface area shrank by approximately 60%, and its volume by 80%. In 1960, the Aral Sea had been the world&#8217;s fourth-largest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}