Aral Sea: collapse by design
Javier Arpa Fernández (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
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Abstract
Visiting the Aral Sea reveals devastation beyond imagination: a vanished ecosystem, abandoned ships, and desolate salt plains. Once the world’s fourth-largest lake, it was drained after Soviet irrigation projects diverted its rivers in the 1960s, triggering one of history’s worst human-made ecological disasters. The collapse of fisheries, toxic dust storms, and regional health crises followed. While Kazakhstan’s Kok-Aral Dam and reforestation efforts have partially revived the northern basin, the recovery remains fragile. The Aral’s story exposes how extractive design reshapes the planet — drying seas here, flooding cities elsewhere — and warns of the irreversible costs of human neglect and inaction.