Just a few short days ago, we posted about an island that disappeared, effectively resolving a conflict between India and Bangladesh.  Rising sea levels claimed that island.

Well, now we have almost the exact opposite situation.  This story takes place in (what used to be) a large lake – a very large lake, in fact, the world’s 4th-largest, and so large that it is called a Sea.   The Aral Sea.

Instead of an island disappearing, here we have new land appearing because of the draining of the lake, and conflict between countries preventing anything from being done about it.

We think this is a good example of how life cycle assessment can and should be applied to a project.

It’s not hard.

Imagine if you will, a coffee pot.  You pour some of the coffee pot into several cups.  Are you with us?  You keep pouring, diverting the coffee from the pot into the cups until the cups are full.  Now here comes the thinking part.  Can you imagine that there is now less coffee in the pot?  Sure.  Now just apply this thinking to the Aral Sea.  Water from feeding rivers was diverted.  The lake was not fed new water.  So it dried up, to the point where now it is only 10% of its original size, and (as you see in the picture) a fishing industry was ruined, and salty sands from this large area are now brought via wind to places as far as Scandinavia and Japan, causing health issues in those remote areas.  To put this in terms that are more familiar to North Americans, the Aral Sea has lost more water than the combined volume of Lakes Huron and Erie.

The Aral Sea is located in Central Asia.  See the map below (it’s in the center, straddling Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan).

Here’s what happened (from a UN report):

Up until recently, atlases described Central Asia’s Aral Sea as the world’s fourth largest lake. Fed by two major rivers – the Amu Darya in the south, and the Syr Darya in the north – it stretched across an area of 66,000 sq km, with a total volume estimated at more than 1,000 cubic km. Its waters supplied local fisheries with annual catches of 40,000 tonnes, while the deltas of its major tributaries hosted dozens of smaller lakes and biologically rich marshes and wetlands covering 550,000 ha.

How the Aral Sea was turned into an ecological disaster – and might now be saved from still further damage, if never fully restored – is documented in a recent survey by AG’s Land and Water Development Division (AGL) of irrigation development in 15 countries of the former Soviet Union.

In the 1960s, planners assigned Central Asia the role of supplier of raw materials, notably cotton. Given the region’s arid climate, irrigation was imperative, and the Aral Sea and its tributaries seemed a limitless source of water. Irrigation development in the Soviet part of the Aral Sea basin was spectacular, expanding from an area of about 4.5 million ha in 1960 to almost 7 million ha in 1980. Local population also grew rapidly, from 14 million to about 27 million in the same period, while total water withdrawal almost doubled to 120 cubic km, more than 90% of it for agriculture.

The result was what water resource experts call “disruption of the prevailing water balance” in the Aral basin. Many minor tributaries were so overexploited that they ceased to contribute directly to the flow of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya. Low irrigation efficiencies – caused by unlined canals and a poor drainage network – led to major waterlogging and salinization that eventually affected about 40% of irrigated land. Overuse of pesticides and fertilizer polluted surface- and groundwater, while the delta ecosystems have simply perished: by 1990, more than 95% of the marshes and wetlands had given way to sand deserts, and more than 50 delta lakes, covering 60 000 ha, had dried up.

UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon visited the area recently.  Read the story here. Also, see an animation of how the lake’s profile has changed over the past decades here.

New projects to save the Aral Sea have begun.  But wouldn’t it make more sense, dear project managers, to have thought this through at the outset, to think about the product of the projects that were draining the Aral Sea before it became a catastrophe?  This is life cycle assessment, and if you only think about coffee pots, it’s not that hard.

This is a whole feature on Project Management and the “Green Sector”.  Very good and recommended reading whether you’re interested in our interview or not!

Check it out HERE.