Quarante ans de l'évolution de l'Aral : un grand lac disparaît - bilan provisoire en 1999 (Forty years of the Aral evolution : a great lake vanishes)

Abstract

Summary. - The surface of the Aral lake before the 1960's, its low salinity were determined since several centuries by a stationnary state, due to balanced water inputs and outputs. The authors have analysed in the last two years by field work the shores of the lake destroyed by 40 years of soviet politic of development, by industrial agriculture in Central Asia. The objective was to transform the delta of Amu and Syr Daria in irrigated areas, using the 70 km3/year of fluvial waters stored in huge reservoirs so as to compensate the droughts. Since, only some km3 of drainage water reach the lake with a regular increase of the salinity. The paper analyses the evolution of the general data since 1960 in Maloye More and Bolchoi More, in the Pri-Aral plains and deltas. The consequences of the ecological disaster are analysed in a prospective framework : nowadays, in a transition phase, the Aral lake will became around 2050 a set of lagoons of sebkha type.