IV.

Government Efforts

In the late 1980s the Soviet government initiated programs to deal with the key problems in the Aral region. After the collapse of the USSR in late 1991, these efforts were carried on by the five nations in the Aral Sea basin—Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan—with major help from the international community, primarily the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), the United States government, and the European Union (EU). The five nations signed a water-sharing measure in 1992 that included a provision to provide at least 14 cu km (3 cu mi) of water per year to the Aral Sea. In practice, however, this water was supplied to gauging points in the deltas of the two rivers, and deliveries to the sea were considerably smaller. Agreements to improve the situation signed in 1993, 1994, and 1995 included the creation of a fund for the sea to which the nations agreed to donate 0.3 percent of national income.

The major focus of efforts in recent years has been to improve the living conditions of people around the sea through the implementation of improved medical services, wastewater treatment, and drinking water purification. Some attention also has been devoted to improving ecological conditions in the Amu Darya delta. The preservation of the Large Aral has been abandoned, however. The amount of inflow from the Amu Darya necessary merely to stabilize the Large Aral is viewed as unobtainable; it would require either drastic reductions in irrigation and subsequent economic calamity, or investments of tens of billions of dollars to rehabilitate inefficient irrigation systems. Ways to stimulate water-use efficiency, such as water pricing, have been seriously considered, but the introduction of such policy reforms is progressing slowly.

Restoration of the Small Aral, however, required much less inflow, and in August 2005 the Kazakh government completed a 13 km (8 mi)-long dike, known as the Berg Strait Dike, to block the channel connecting the Small Aral with the Large Aral. The dike raised the Small Aral’s level by 2 m (7 ft) by 2007 and increased its area by about 20 percent. Fishers reported that they were again catching carp, catfish, perch, pike, and sturgeon, and there were reports of a total catch of about 6,000 tons in 2006. In 2007 the Kazakh government evaluated plans to build a second dam across the mouth of the Saryshaganak Gulf to further raise the level of that body of water and bring that part of the Small Aral near to the port of Aral’sk.