Environmental Crisis in Central Asia

This paper discusses how central Asia environmental crisis will affect central Asia ecosystems and human inhabitants. During the last decades the central Asia has suffered an enormous consumption of water resources and river basins for agriculture activities and human consumptions. In addition, In the 1990s, the world became aware of the ecological disaster of what was once the fourth largest lake in the world – the Aral Sea. The drastic desiccation of the Aral Sea led to the intensive development of desertification processes in the region and the formation of a new desert, the Aralkum. In the last few decades, the Aralkum has become the new ‘‘hot spot’’ of dust and salt storms in the region. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the environmental crisis on central Asia and the vulnerability of region inhabitants. This paper provides necessary background, and the linkage operating currently within the spheres of regional ecosystem and human health will be detailed. Drastic environmental changes in central Asia are primarily consequences of intensive agriculture activities, extreme consumptions of water resources and dangerous salt storms in the region

Keywords:

Central Asia , environmental crisis , Aral Sea , dust storms , agriculture activities , water management