Environmental and Societal Impacts Group (ESIG)

Sustainable Development

Sustainable Development in the Aral Sea Region. Glantz was invited by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to attend the International Conference on Sustainable Development of the Aral Sea Basin, held in Nukus, Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan, in September 1995 and attended by the heads of state of the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. He presented an invited background paper entitled "Sustainable Development and Creeping Environmental Problems in the Aral Sea Region."

64K Part of a flotilla of Uzbek Airlines (AN-2) carrying scientists and policymakers on an overflight of the shore of the Aral Sea in the Amudarya river delta. (September 1995) Photo by M.H. Glantz.

The Aral Sea region is widely recognized as an area in deep crisis, with continuing negative repercussions for local populations of humans, animals, and fish, as well as vegetation and water quality. The drying of the Sea and its attendant adverse environmental effects are attributed to Soviet diversions of upstream water to produce cash crops 30 years ago, but why have these problems not been addressed?

76K An Uzbek Government poster display showing the declining levels of the Aral Sea over the last several decades. Photo by M.H. Glantz, taken in Nukus, Karalpakstan, Uzbekistan in September 1995.

Glantz contends that the lack of action is attributable to the nature of the issues, which he characterizes as "creeping environmental problems," incremental changes that take place so gradually and over so long a period of time that people fail to notice them until they have grown to an extent where ordinary remedial actions prove ineffective. More drastic action is required, and collaboration among the surrounding nations is imperative to begin to address the problems.

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