Why Did the Aral Sea Shrink? Satellite Map Timelapse 2000→2026 | Maps in Motion #03
Short answer
- From the 1950s, water from the two rivers was diverted to irrigation; with no outlet to the ocean, evaporation kept pulling the level down.
- The former Aral Sea (about 68,000 km² around 1960) was about 100 times Lake Biwa's area.
- The Kok-Aral Dam (completed 2005) partly revived the north, while the shallow eastern basin in the south dries up and refills year to year.
Video
Pressing play loads the YouTube player on this page. Watch on YouTube
Explained
In the video
- 0:00Where did the water go?
- 0:37How big was the Aral Sea?
- 1:11Where was the river water used?
- 1:46Why does the water level fall?
- 2:09How did the shoreline move?
- 2:50What happened to the former port town?
- 3:20Where does the salt go?
- 3:52What was built for the northern lake?
- 4:24How did the northern shoreline change?
- 4:56What about the south?
- 5:26Where is the water over a whole year?
- 5:53What does it look like in 2026?
Why did the Aral Sea's shoreline change so dramatically? Follow maps based on satellite imagery from 2000 to 2026 to explore irrigation (bringing river water to fields), a former port town, the effects of salt, and the partial recovery of the North Aral Sea in Central Asia.
Data behind the maps
| Item | Reference period | Value or event | Supporting source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Former Aral Sea surface area | Around 1960 | About 68,000 km² (approximate) | USGS EROS, Aral Sea, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan |
| Lake Biwa surface area | Published reference value | 669.26 km² | Shiga Prefecture, Overview of Lake Biwa, Japan |
| Ratio of the two areas | Former Aral Sea versus Lake Biwa's reference area | About 100 times (approximate), rounded from 68,000 ÷ 669.26 | The two sources above; calculation recorded in the episode brief |
| Main inflowing rivers | North / south | The Syr Darya feeds the north; the Amu Darya feeds the south | USGS EROS, Aral Sea, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan |
| River diversions for farming | From the 1950s | The Soviet Union expanded projects to bring river water to fields for cotton and other crops | NASA, The Aral Sea, Before the Streams Ran Dry |
| Present Kok-Aral Dam | 2005 | Completed; helps retain water in the north and controls releases to the south | USGS EROS, Kok-Aral Dam |
The comparison is of surface area, rather than water volume. The episode materials do not provide annual lake areas or percentage losses.
Maps and satellite imagery used
Tamelabo's approximate water outlines use NASA EOSDIS GIBS / Terra MODIS Bands 7-2-1 imagery, a combination of wavelengths that differs from natural color. The sequence uses these 13 image dates.
| Requested image date | Use in the maps |
|---|---|
| 25 August 2000 | Start of the sequence and reference shoreline |
| 15 August 2001 | Map sequence |
| 20 August 2002 | Map sequence |
| 12 August 2003 | Map sequence |
| 16 August 2004 | Map sequence |
| 12 August 2005 | Map sequence |
| 15 August 2006 | Map sequence |
| 16 August 2007 | Map sequence |
| 19 August 2014 | Comparison showing the dry eastern basin of the South Aral Sea |
| 20 August 2022 | Closing map sequence |
| 20 August 2025 | Closing map sequence |
| 20 August 2026 | Summer view |
| 12 October 2026 | Autumn view |
The colored outlines were made by Tamelabo for an overview of change. They are not suitable for precise shoreline or area measurement. Blue does not show salinity or water quality, and shorelines for intervening years have not been invented.
| Map or image | Date or period | Provider | How to read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black-and-white Aral Sea image (KH-5) | 22 August 1964 | U.S. Air Force / USGS EROS, via NASA Earth Observatory | Diversion projects had already begun; shown in its original orientation |
| Early lake-wide views | 1977; 1987; 1998–1999 | USGS EROS | Each view combines images from multiple dates |
| Aralsk, a former port town | 22 August 1964; August–September 2015 | USGS EROS | The 2015 view is a composite |
| Farmland along the Amu Darya | 24 July 2021 | USGS EROS | A later example, not a map of farmland in the 1950s |
| Northern spring comparison | 15 April 2005; 14 April 2007 | NASA GIBS (outline imagery) / NASA Earth Observatory (original comparison images) | Shoreline expansion shown at the same extent and scale |
| Changes in the eastern basin of the South Aral Sea | 16 August 2009; 26 August 2010; 19 August 2014; 21 August 2018 | NASA GIBS / Terra MODIS | True Color imagery, close to natural color, with the 2000 shoreline as a reference |
| Annual water classification | 2024 | EC JRC/Google, Global Surface Water v1.5 Seasonality | Dark blue: permanent water; light blue: seasonal water; uncolored: non-water or insufficient observations |
| Final daily image | Requested date: 12 October 2026 | NASA GIBS / Terra MODIS | True Color; water visible in the North Aral Sea and the western basin of the South Aral Sea as retrieved |
| Locator maps: borders, rivers and other features | Contemporary borders; source data year not recorded in the supplied materials | Natural Earth | Generalized rivers; contemporary borders also used in historical scenes |
| Terrain shading | Observation years of the underlying elevation data not recorded in the supplied materials | AWS Terrain Tiles (Mapzen/Tilezen) | Combines elevation sources; separate from shoreline observations |
The 2024 classification summarizes a year of observations, rather than one day's shoreline. The August and October 2026 views are also from different seasons and do not support a like-for-like area comparison. Daily imagery is not live video, and its pixels need not all come from the same instant.
What this episode shows
- Large withdrawals for irrigation (bringing water to fields) reduced river inflow while evaporation continued, driving the lake's long decline.
- Salt becoming more concentrated in the lake and salty dust from the exposed lakebed affecting farmland soil are problems in different places.
- The dam and other measures helped the north recover partly; the South Aral Sea's eastern basin varies by year and season, and the whole former lake has not returned.
Shorts
Sources
Where the facts and numbers in the video and on this page come from.
- NASA EOSDIS GIBS (and)nasa-gibs.github.io/gibs-api-docs/access-basics
- NASA GIBS WMS documentation (— Daily Terra MODIS Corrected Reflectance imagery, Bands 7-2-1 and True Color. Retrieved and checked: 12 October 2026. Approximate water outlines and reference overlays by Tamelabo)nasa-gibs.github.io/gibs-api-docs/gis-usage
- NASA Earth Observatory: World of Change, Shrinking Aral Sea (— Image-date selection and the history of shrinkage. Checked: 12 October 2026)science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/world-of-change…
- NASA Earth Observatory: The Aral Sea, Before the Streams Ran Dry (— Diversion history and the 1964 image. Imagery: U.S. Air Force KH-5 9066A / USGS EROS. Checked: 12 October 2026; individual image retrieval date not recorded)science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/the-aral-sea-be…
- USGS EROS: Aral Sea, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan (— The inland lake, its rivers, former area and early image composites. Checked: 12 October 2026; individual image retrieval dates not recorded)eros.usgs.gov/earthshots/aral-sea-kazakhstan-and-uzbe…
- NASA Earth Observatory: North Aral Sea Recovery (— Northern spring comparison and the former port. Original imagery: NASA / Jesse Allen, MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Checked: 12 October 2026; individual image retrieval dates not recorded)science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/north-aral-sea-…
- USGS EROS: Aralsk (— Town comparison images and impacts on fishing. Checked: 12 October 2026; individual image retrieval dates not recorded)eros.usgs.gov/earthshots/aralsk
- USGS EROS: Where Is the Water? (— Farmland imagery dated 24 July 2021. Checked: 12 October 2026; individual image retrieval date not recorded)eros.usgs.gov/earthshots/where-the-water
- USGS EROS: Kok-Aral Dam (and)eros.usgs.gov/earthshots/kok-aral-dam
- USGS EROS: North Aral Sea (— Dam completion and northern recovery. Checked: 12 October 2026)eros.usgs.gov/earthshots/north-aral-sea
- NASA Earth Observatory: The Aral Sea Loses Its Eastern Lobe (,)science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/the-aral-sea-lo…
- NASA Earth Observatory: The Variable Sea (and)science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/the-variable-se…
- USGS EROS: South Aral Sea (— Eastern-basin drying, fluctuations and salinity impacts. Checked: 12 October 2026)eros.usgs.gov/earthshots/south-aral-sea
- EC JRC/Google: Global Surface Water data and license (and)global-surface-water.appspot.com/download
- JRC FAQ (— Source: EC JRC/Google, v1.5, Seasonality 2024. Retrieved and checked: 12 October 2026. Map tiles used for display, not area calculations; arrangement by Tamelabo. Required citation:)global-surface-water.appspot.com/faq
- Pekel, Cottam, Gorelick and Belward (2016) (, High-resolution mapping of global surface water and its long-term changes, Nature 540, 418–422)doi.org/10.1038/nature20584
- Natural Earth (— Countries, land, lakes and rivers. Tom Patterson, Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso and contributors; public domain. Original retrieval date not recorded in the supplied materials; reused from the existing asset library. Usage terms checked in the record dated 12 October 2026. Colors and arrangement by Tamelabo)naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use
- AWS Terrain Tiles (and)s3.amazonaws.com/elevation-tiles-prod/terrarium
- Mapzen/Tilezen attribution (— Terrain shading. SRTM and GMTED2010 courtesy of USGS; ETOPO1, NOAA; and other listed sources. Individual retrieval date not recorded; added use documented in the production report dated 12 October 2026)github.com/tilezen/joerd/blob/master/docs/attribut…
- NOAA: Why is the ocean salty, but rivers flowing into it are not? (and)oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/riversnotsalty.html
- USGS: Salinity and hydrology of closed lakes (— Dissolved salts in rivers and concentration in lakes without an outlet. Checked: 12 October 2026)pubs.usgs.gov/publication/pp412
- Shiga Prefecture: Overview of Lake Biwa (— Published surface area, 669.26 km² (Japanese source). Checked: 12 October 2026)pref.shiga.lg.jp/de51/2878.html
- Government of Kazakhstan: Independence day (and)gov.kz/memleket/entities/almaty-depfin/press/e…
- Uzbekistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs: History (— The region's Soviet-era context. Checked: 12 October 2026)gov.uz/en/mfa/sections/view/14508
- NASA Media Usage Guidelines (and)nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media
- USGS Copyrights and Credits (— Image usage terms. Checked: 12 October 2026. Images are cropped, resized or arranged for comparison. NASA has not reviewed or endorsed this production)usgs.gov/information-policies-and-instructions/c…
Voice, music, art
- Voice: Kokoro (synthetic narration) / Music (OpenTracks): “近代的日本空間” by 伊藤ケイスケ / “あの日見た景色” by こばっと
