The Caspian Sea is shrinking rapidly

Photo:Pixabay

The future of the Caspian Sea is uncertain in addition to its constant shrinking it is also threatened by pollution which is most noticeable on the southern shore. The state of the waters of the Caspian Sea is carefully monitored and for a long time it is the most polluted on the Iranian side.

The Caspian Sea is the largest inland sea on the planet and its body of water is about the size of Montana. The loop coast stretches for six thousand five hundred kilometers and is shared by Kazakhstan, Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia and Turkmenistan.

Five countries make extensive use of the Caspian Sea both in the field of fishing, tourism, drinking water, and also for the extraction of oil and natural gas. The Caspian Sea greatly helps regulate the climate in the arid region here providing rainfall and moisture to Central Asia.

However the future of the sea is greatly threatened by over-mining pollution and increasingly the human-caused climate crisis driving sea level decline. Some experts fear that the Caspian Sea is being pushed to the point of no return.

While climate change is raising global sea levels it's a different story for inland seas and lakes. They rely on the delicate balance between inflowing water from rivers and rainfall.

The nearby Aral Sea was once one of the world's largest lakes but today it has all but disappeared thanks to the escalating climate crisis and a combination of human activities. The Caspian Sea is fed by 130 rivers but 80 percent of the water comes from the Volga. The inflow into the lake is increasingly regulated thanks to the construction of dam reservoirs. Russia alone has already built forty dams and another 18 are under construction which significantly limits the inflow.

If some research comes true the level of the Caspian Sea could drop by eighteen to thirty meters by the end of the century.

Source:CNN/Editorial