Refilling the Aral Sea: A Spanish scientific proposal to avoid releasing millions of tons of CO₂

The drying of the Aral Sea, between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, is one of the largest agricultural-driven ecological disasters in history. It was the fourth-largest lake in the world until the early 1960s, when it began to shrink after river water was diverted for cotton cultivation under the then–Soviet Union. A study led by Spanish researchers published July 16 in the journal Science finds that its present dry bed is also a significant source of the CO₂ driving climate change. Since 1960, the authors estimate it has released 748 million tons of CO₂, the equivalent of one year’s emissions from Spain, France, and Belgium combined.

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