Shrinking Aral Sea, 2000-2016 In the 1960s, the Soviet Union undertook a major water diversion project on the arid plains of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The region’s two major rivers, fed by snowmelt and precipitation in faraway mountains, were used to transform the desert into farms for cotton and other crops. Before the project, the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya rivers flowed down from the mountains, cut northwest through the Kyzylkum Desert, and finally pooled together in the lowe

Once considered beyond saving, the Aral Sea is now brimming with life. The water body located between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan was earlier the fourth-largest lake in the world. Its desertification was one of the planet's worst environmental disasters Jyotsna Kumar brings you this report Watch more: https://www.wionews.com/videos | WION