The document summarizes the depletion of the Aral Sea over time using satellite imagery from 1986 to 2014. The Aral Sea has shrunk dramatically over the past 50 years due to irrigation for agriculture diverting water from the rivers that fed the sea. This has caused environmental and economic problems for the region by destroying the local ecosystem and making the water source unusable. At the current rate of shrinkage, the southern portion of the Aral Sea is at risk of completely disappearing.

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Abstract
Conclusions
Aral Sea?
Or Aral Desert?
Lucine Garibian, Max Winkelmeyer, Joseph Tomoyasu, Brenda Camacho
Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara
• In 1960, the Aral Sea used to be the fourth largest
lake in the world at 68,000 km2. In just 50 years, it has
shrunk to 10% of its former size.
• The Aral Sea was home to a unique ecosystem that
has dramatically changed.
• The depletion of the Aral Sea has caused health
problems, crop death and economic impacts.
-Irrigation
-Agriculture
-Weapons
Testing
-River
Diversions
Causes of Aral Desert Expanse
Effects of Aral Desert Expanse
• Endangered and vanished endemic species
• Dependency on vanishing water supply, and a
suffering regional economy
• Increased salinity makes water uninhabitable, also
evaporated areas
• Diminishing health of the local population
Amudaryabasin.net
Objectives
• To display the rate of depletion of the Aral Sea from
1986 to 2014.
• Landsat data enables us to see this change over time,
and with supplemental data we can understand its
causes and effects.
• We will use 30m spatial resolution Landsat Imagery
from 1986 to 2014.
Methods
• Download images from USGS for selected time
periods.
• Mosaic images together
• Clip imagery to the same size using the ROI (Region
of Interest) Tool
• Parallelepiped supervised classification of water
pixels, and other categories that may interfere
The Aral Sea has shrunk by 90.07% since 1960 and about
84.71% since 1986. Of the time periods analyzed, the Aral
Sea experienced the most percent change during the eight
year period between 2006 and 2014. The Aral Sea shrank
by 57.5% of its then size from 38,033,899 km2 to 17,649,608
km2. While efforts to save the Northern Aral Sea have
reduced the shrinkage, the Southern Aral Sea has continued
to shrink at an alarming rate leaving desert in its wake. At
this current rate of shrinkage, the Southern Aral Sea may
soon cease to exist.
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1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
km2
Year
Shrinkage of the Aral Sea
Results