The road to the Aral Sea runs through the Ustyurt Plateau and the Kyzylkum desert. It is an almost lifeless space hardly explored and still full of mystery. Fans of active and adventure tourism can book the Aral Sea Tour as an extension to Jeep Tour which includes the Kyzylkum desert and big cities of Uzbekistan.
There are many different opinions on the reason of the disappearance of the Aral. One of them is the destruction of the bottom layer of the Aral Sea and its flow into the Caspian Sea and adjacent lakes. Someone claims that the disappearance of the Aral Sea is a natural process associated with global climate change. Some see the reason in the degradation of the surface of mountain glaciers, their dusting and mineralization of precipitation that feeds the Syr Daria and Amu Daria rivers. However, the most common is the original version – the diversion of the rivers that feed the Aral. The Amu Daria and Syr Daria rivers which flow into the Aral Sea, were the main arteries that fed the reservoir. In the past they delivered 60 cubic kilometers of water per year to the closed sea.
Now the number is about 4-5 cubic kilometers. Over 18 years, the area of the Aral Sea has almost halved. During this time, the salt desert, formed in the 1990s, spread to thousands of square kilometers. According to the latest data, the salinity of the sea has increased five to seven times. This led to the disappearance of fish. The Aral Sea was the area with continental climate. The Aral acted as a kind of regulator, softening winds in winter and reducing heat in the summer months. In the past 10 years, the region has experienced a climate change. Summers have become drier and shorter, winters – longer and colder.