In the 1960ies and in many decades before, the Aral Sea in the former Soviet Union was a desert terminal lake of considerable extent (see the Aral Sea) with thriving fishery and healthy twons and cities at its shores. . Russian engineers, who thought that this lake was an error of nature, decided that the water from the two rivers ... and ... feeding the Lake from the South and Noth-East could be diverted to irrigate the desert in order to plant cotton for export.

In 1986, the Lake had already started to shrink. The breaking up of the Soviet Union accelerated this process because now the emerging countries Kasachstan, Usbekistan, and Turkmenistan without much coordination increased the diversion of water.

In 2008, the lake has shrunk to less than 25% of its original size, salinity has increased five-fold, fish died, and much of the former lake botton turned into dusty desert, freeing pesticide and nutrients stored in the lake during preceding decades. A major environmental developed rapidly with the economic basis for the adjacent settlements gone and the health of the population rapidly deteriorating due to the high air polution from the former lake bottom.