--- title: "the place that's mostly gone" canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/the-place-thats-mostly-gone markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/the-place-thats-mostly-gone.md subtitle: what you can still ensure at the aral sea category: philosophy --- # the place that's mostly gone *what you can still ensure at the aral sea* The Aral Sea has partly come back: the northern basin has recovered since a dam was finished in 2005, and the southern basin has not. What you can still ensure there is the part that came back, and the conditions that let it keep coming back. In December 2022 we asked Timur, from Central Asia, for a place that mattered to him. We suggested a few he might know, a fertile valley and a great river. He chose the Aral Sea instead, and sent an article about why it dried up. He chose a place that is mostly gone. What is left of the Aral, and the rivers that still reach it, exist and still work, whether or not anyone names them. Ensurance is how the places someone names get funded to keep working. It is not the sea. ## what happened The Aral Sea was once one of the largest lakes in the world. From the 1960s, Soviet planners diverted the two rivers that fed it, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, to irrigate cotton and rice. The sea lost most of its volume, roughly nine-tenths. Fishing towns found themselves miles from the water. Dust from the dry seabed blew across the region. That is the part most people know. The part fewer people know is what happened next. ## what came back In 2005 Kazakhstan, with World Bank financing, finished a dam across the northern part of the sea, holding the water of one river, the Syr Darya, in the smaller northern basin. The North Aral rose. The water became less salty. Fishing returned near the old port of Aralsk. It is not the whole sea. The dam helped the north by sending less water south, and the southern part is still largely gone, with the communities around it carrying that. But the northern part shows that a place written off as lost can recover in part, when river water is held there, though that meant less for the south. :::johnson **a place that is mostly gone is still a place.** What is left, and what came back, can be named, looked after, and funded to keep working. [name your place →](/place?from=guide) ::: ## why someone would choose it When people answer "what place matters to you?", they usually pick somewhere beautiful and intact. Choosing a place that is mostly gone is a different kind of answer. Timur did not give a reason in his own words; he sent an article. Even so, a choice like that says something: this still matters, and what happened to it matters. It is also a useful kind of answer. A place that has already shown partial recovery tells you what works there: in this case, how much river water reaches it. ## what you can still ensure | what is left | what it depends on, in part | |---|---| | The recovered North Aral | The river water held behind the dam | | The fishery near Aralsk | Water levels and salinity staying where they recovered to | | What remains of the river deltas and their wetlands | Enough water reaching them each season | | Towns downwind of the dry seabed | Ground cover on the exposed seabed | None of these is "the Aral Sea" in general. Each is a specific part, with a specific dependency. That is what makes it something you can act on. ## what happens when you name it On [ensurance](/place?from=guide), naming the Aral Sea puts it on the map and starts the research on what it depends on and who already looks after it. Places that are hurt are not excluded. ## frequently asked questions ### can the aral sea be restored? Part of it has recovered; the sea as a whole has not been restored. The northern basin recovered after a dam completed in 2005 held river water there; salinity fell and fishing returned. The southern basin has not recovered and depends on how much river water reaches it. ### why did the aral sea dry up? From the 1960s, the rivers that fed it were diverted for irrigation. With most of its inflow gone, the sea shrank by roughly nine-tenths of its volume. ### is it worth protecting a place that is mostly gone? Yes. People still fish near Aralsk. The north came back in part, and what helped is known: more river water reaching it. ## sources - NASA Earth Observatory, [World of Change: Shrinking Aral Sea](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/AralSea). - World Bank, [Syr Darya Control and Northern Aral Sea Project](https://projects.worldbank.org/en/projects-operations/project-detail/P046045). *Names changed for privacy.* ## the series 1. [the one question that gets people to care about a place](/guide/the-one-question-that-gets-people-to-care-about-a-place?from=guide) (read first) 2. [the waterfall that asked a question back](/guide/the-waterfall-that-asked-a-question-back?from=guide) 3. [far away is still specific](/guide/far-away-is-still-specific?from=guide) 4. **the place that's mostly gone** 5. [the home you won't pin](/guide/the-home-you-wont-pin?from=guide)