FRESH water is flowing back to the stricken Aral Sea, raising hopes of a return to its former glory days.
Because the Soviet Union considered the magnificent lake an “error of nature”, it diverted much of the river water that fed it to irrigate cotton fields. The lake began to dwindle. Before the 1960s it was the fourth biggest lake in the world, but by 1990 it had split into two parts. By 1996 the smaller North Aral Sea, fed by the Syr Darya river, had lost half its surface area and three-quarters of its volume.
Now it is refilling,…
