The current droughts in California threaten “America’s breadbasket” with huge production losses and soil degradation (Carroll 2015). On the other side of the world, the Aral Sea is an example of the catastrophic consequences of desertification. Though it is not directly tied to overgrazing, the shrinking of the Aral Sea is related to agriculture. The sea, which was once over 26,000 square miles (larger than West Virginia), is now just over 1,200 (smaller than Rhode Island) (Howard 2014). Located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the lake’s tributaries were dammed and diverted for irrigation by the Soviet Union starting in the 1960s. Over time, the government’s poor planning destroyed the lake and surrounding ecosystem, leaving nothing but a desert behind. If steps are not taken to halt desertification elsewhere, there may be many shrunken Aral Seas around the world in the
The current droughts in California threaten “America’s breadbasket” with huge production losses and soil degradation (Carroll 2015). On the other side of the world, the Aral Sea is an example of the catastrophic consequences of desertification. Though it is not directly tied to overgrazing, the shrinking of the Aral Sea is related to agriculture. The sea, which was once over 26,000 square miles (larger than West Virginia), is now just over 1,200 (smaller than Rhode Island) (Howard 2014). Located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the lake’s tributaries were dammed and diverted for irrigation by the Soviet Union starting in the 1960s. Over time, the government’s poor planning destroyed the lake and surrounding ecosystem, leaving nothing but a desert behind. If steps are not taken to halt desertification elsewhere, there may be many shrunken Aral Seas around the world in the