ABSTRACT
Most ecological disasters happen due to incompetence and the inability to forecast and evaluate the consequences of industrial and urban development. The disaster that struck the Aral Sea differs from other similar disasters in one respect: it was planned and carried out deliberately. Central Asia contains one of the world's largest closed water basins. All rivers run to the sea, but the Amu-Darya and the Syr-Darya reach only the lower part of the basin, as it is fully used for irrigation. In the case of Central Asia, the situation is deliberately analyzed from the top down, for if deterioration threatens human health, and even survival of the entire human population, then it deal with the flora, the fauna, and the state of the soil. There is only one area in the world where the destructive desertification processes advance on an even larger scale than in Central Asia and its vicinity, and that is the Sahara and the Sahel.
