Aral Sea Restoration Update - 2025

The Aral Sea restoration project continues making progress, now as of 2025 having restored the sea to roughly 3% of its original water volume, up from the all-time low of 1% during the 2010s.

[tengbeng]

Nice to have at least some good news on the environmental front.

[swimspud]

This is not unique to the soviets. In California we drained lake Owens to provide water to Los Angeles. And drained Lake Tulare to grow cotton.

[jarigustafsson]

Finally some positive news for nature.

[SurikatMeerkat]

The photo you used at 3:38 actually looks exactly like a massive irrigation system built in South Africa. A fascinating story in itself, considering they built it almost entirely by hand and it's completely gravity fed. It just reminded me of it, a real blast from the past.

[PiperStart]

Thanks for this. We must hope that sanity prevails and the sea is restored.

[deaththekid]

The drying of the Aral lake has to be the greatest environmental disaster in the history of mankind, and it’s not even a contest. If we can reverse it, we can do anything.

[fmnan]

Well i wouldn't be that much optimistic because Turkmenistan still takes the water it wants, and is building an artificial lake futher to the south. Afghanistan is also building their own canal and they give no information whatsoever how much water they are going to take, nor they want to engage in negotiations. Meanwhile Kazakhstan is the only doing something. To belive the all see can be restaured is a bit of wishful thinking, unless there is favourable climate change. The see bed could be cleaned and in the mean time in Uzbekistan new ares could be created for smaller basins where the water level could rise because right now evaporation is the main reason for water scarecy.

[Hortifox_the_gardener]

Thanks for the info. Years ago I read about the north Aral sea to showing progress to recover somewhat.
Great there is hope after all. Would be a benefit for all humanity to restore the toxic dusty wasteland into a thriving lake. It would improve the local climate.

[EmperorCaligula_EC]

Destruction is easy, rebuilding is heard.

"Every little boy can stamp dead a beetle, but all the wise man of the world can't make one."
- ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

[HAGARCIA]

Muito bom saber que o mar Aral está sendo recuperado!🙂😊

[WesleyHarcourtSTEAMandMORE]

I hope the slow resurgence of the sea doesn't embolden the greedy to try to make more farmland and extract more water.

Positive results from conservation efforts seem to give developers justification they can cram more people into the desert.. at least here in the US.

[RCSVirginia]

Central Asia would be a great place to introduce Israeli-style agricultural methods that significantly reduce water usage for growing crops. The less water used, the more that can go into the Aral Sea. This was a nicely-done and informative video: I'm looking forward to more like it.

[GuyUnderDog]

I wonder if there will be a noticeable impact on on rainfall for a restored lake?
I hope irrigation conservation don't speed up salt build.

[AreHan]

Thanks for some uplifting developments 😊

[jerrynoruega]

This is a kind of video I needed, there is little information on the progress that's widely available. Thank you!

[samsudinudin]

Very well presented and perfect visual. ❤❤❤

[drb]

I see everyone saying to plant tree's there but I wouldn't encourage that, where they should plant tree's is on the bank's of the river's that feed it. It can be restored within maybe a decade however the major challenge will be restoring ground water sources.

[ImRandomDude]

do they do anything with the contaminated soil? or it just gets flooded and job well done?

[garynew]

A very neccesary endeavor!
Cheers from australia.

[patoruairc]

Mistakes were made in the past and the downfall of the Soviet Union accelerated the negative process, but this is a victory and a global example of what can be done to reverse man-made environmental fiascos.