The difficult environmental issue
The environment is Uzbekistan's black page. 70 years of Soviet presence and nearly a century of cotton monoculture have left indelible and catastrophic marks on Uzbekistan's landscape. In the years following independence, Uzbekistan's economy was far too stricken for the government and people to care about the environment. And since the economic growth has started, the time is more for massive reconstruction of the built environment. The result is that everything is being built, everywhere, often in spite of common sense and without trying to preserve nature and the panoramas. The situation would thus tend to worsen.
The disappearance of the Aral Sea
First and foremost, the most visible of all environmental disasters is of course the disappearance of the Aral Sea, which began to recede in the 1960s. Excessive irrigation upstream of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya, the two rivers that used to feed the Aral Sea, has literally dried them up. The Syr Darya no longer reaches the sea, and the waters of the legendary Oxus and its fertile delta are lost in the desert. In 2010, there was still some water on the Uzbek side, but in 2017 the basin was completely dried up. If the lake on the Kazakh side seems to maintain its level, the Uzbek side of the Aral Sea has well and truly disappeared before our eyes in half a century! For the moment, the Kazakh government is trying to feed what is left of it, on its side of the border, but the situation seems desperate on the Uzbek side. The disappearance of the sea results in a rise in the degree of salinity in what remains of the water, on the Kazakh side, with dramatic consequences for the aquatic fauna and flora, now extinct in Uzbekistan. From now on, the Aral Sea has been replaced by the Aral desert, the Aral Koum. It extends as far as the eye can see and the winds carry its sand to distant continents.
The second consequence is that the evaporation bubble created by the Aral Sea, which protected the region from the Siberian winds, disappears with the sea, and the whole of Karakalpakstan is exposed to the cold and salt-laden wind. The latter ruins the harvests, makes the soil unsuitable for cultivation, and has accelerated the disappearance of flora and fauna, especially birds.
The problem of irrigation
In Uzbekistan, irrigation dates back to the first human settlements and has always ensured the development of desert oasis cities such as Bukhara or Samarkand. But irrigation having been practiced excessively by the Soviets, the river system has been unbalanced. In contrast to the disappearance of the Aral Sea, the level of Lake Aydar Kul, north of the Nourata Mountains, is rising year after year. It is the same for the water table, which reaches worrying levels in Khiva. It is enough to dig two or three meters to reach the water, which seriously threatens the foundations of the buildings of the historical city. Finally, the lack of means for the maintenance of irrigation canals leads to a colossal waste. Since the canals are open, it is estimated that nearly one third of the water is lost to evaporation during the hottest months.
Bacteriological and nuclear waste
Last memories left by the Soviets: nuclear and bacteriological weapons and their waste. In Uzbekistan, on the island of Vozrojdénié, in the Aral Sea, tens of tons of viruses, anthrax or Siberian plague, were left half-buried by the Soviets at the time of independence. The disappearance of the Aral Sea put this island in contact with the mainland, giving birds and lizards the opportunity to transport and spread the viruses. The island, left unattended, eventually caused concern and prompted the Americans to clean up the site after the anthrax scares in New York in the fall of 2001. Probably more than the democratic transition, the environment has become one of the major challenges for all the Central Asian republics.
A threatened fauna and flora
To make room for cotton fields, refineries and industrial complexes, the area of Central Asian forests has been reduced by almost 80 percent, and countless animal species have disappeared from the region. The ongoing reconstruction is largely responsible for the change in the Uzbek landscape. For example, the oriental plane trees that used to be everywhere in the cities and villages of Uzbekistan are increasingly falling victim to the huge open-air construction site that the country has become in recent years. Centuries-old, venerable and revered trees, which had the advantage of providing welcome shade during the hot summer months, are being cut down and replaced by meager fir trees imported from Europe or Russia. The Uzbek landscape is considerably affected, the squares and alleys are no longer protected from the sun and the water consumption, already problematic, is only getting worse. An ecological disaster from every point of view!
A desert country but not desert
The usual vegetation of the desert areas is composed of fat grasses, thorny bushes and the delightful Calligonum setosum with its fragile flowers resembling small balls of down. The tamarisk and saxauls, whose roots plunge more than 10 m below the ground, are the only shrubs and trees to resist the torrid heat and dryness of these regions. But, every year, during the few days following the spring rains, the vegetation wakes up and the sand dunes are covered with flowers: tulips, ranunculus, rhubarb..
As for the fauna, the desert is far from being uninhabited: camels, gerbils, wolves, monitor lizards, turtles, hedgehogs, snakes, scorpions are all species that give life to the Uzbek red sands. Lizards are numerous in the desert, and measure up to 1.50 m. Their bite is not poisonous, but very painful, and it is better to be careful not to step on their tail when they are lying in the bushes. Some inhabitants do not hesitate to handle them early in the morning, while their body temperature keeps the lizards still asleep, but this kind of experience is strongly discouraged, as the awakening can be brutal.
