Lakes are an important part of any local environment, and large lakes are especially critical for things like irrigation, fishing, recreation, and even regulating the local climate.

One massive body of water, the Aral Sea, was once large enough to be the third-largest freshwater reservoir in the world. Today, however, it is significantly smaller, and the area that is now dried up is actually the newest desert in the world.

This sea used to cover an area that was 68,000 square kilometers (26,300 square miles). This sea sits on the border of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Decades ago, the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya were the two main rivers that fed into the sea. They were extensively used for irrigation, which meant far less water ever reached the sea, causing its levels to drop.

By the end of the 1980s, the once massive lake had shrunk enough so that it split into two lakes. The Large Aral was to the south, and the Small Aral was further north, entirely within Kazakhstan.

After a couple more decades, the Large Aral split again into what was called the eastern lobe and western lobe. The eastern lobe has since dried up completely, leaving behind what is today called the Aralkum Desert.

The region used to rely heavily on the lakes for just about every aspect of life. It drying up not only had the direct consequences on things like fishing and boating, but also caused some indirect problems. Specifically, the region now has summers that are hotter and winters that are colder. In addition, they have to endure sandstorms that send sand and salt flying through the area across hundreds of kilometers.

This makes farming in the region more difficult and even causes health problems to those who live there.

To see just how dramatically this body of water has changed, check out this time-lapse video that shows the water from 1977 to 2021:

International efforts have been made to help stabilize the region and hopefully allow the remaining water to grow. The Kok-Aral dike, for example, was built to help stabilize the flow of the Syr Darya. This has allowed the Small Aral to grow by 4 meters (13 feet) over the past 20 years.

Helping a desert become a lake again, however, is a lot harder than it was to let the lake become a desert. There will be decades of work needed to even get the lake to be safe from future shrinking, much less grow it back into the massive body of water it once was.

Protecting freshwater lakes needs to happen before it is too late.

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