Creeping Environmental Problems and Sustainable Development in the Aral Sea Basin

Comprehensively describes this major environmental catastrophe for graduate students and researchers of environmental studies, global change, political science and history.

Michael Glantz (Edited by)

9780521620864, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 May 1999

304 pages, 38 b/w illus. 58 tables
24.4 x 17 x 1.7 cm, 0.68 kg

"The book is highly recommended worldwide to everyone interested in the human dimensions of environmental change because it perfectly illustrates the human causes and impacts that sometimes creepingly turn into a human-induced ecological catastrophe." Environment

Environmental degradation in the Aral Sea basin has been a touchstone for increasing public awareness of environmental issues. The Aral crisis has been touted as a 'quiet Chernobyl' and as one of the worst human-made environmental catastrophes of the twentieth century. This multidisciplinary 1999 book comprehensively describes the slow onset of low grade but incremental changes (i.e. creeping environmental change) which affected the region and its peoples. Through a set of case studies, it describes how the region's decision-makers allowed these changes to grow into an environmental and societal nightmare. It outlines many lessons to be learned for other areas undergoing detrimental creeping environmental change, and provides an important example of how to approach such disasters for students and researchers of environmental studies, global change, political science and history.

Introduction Michael Glantz
1. Sustainable development and creeping environmental problems in the Aral Sea region Michael Glantz
2. Changes of landscape composition of the Aral Sea Basin in connection with ecological disaster Elisabeth A. Vostokova
3. Alteration of water level and salinity of the Aral Sea Vitalyi N. Bortnik
4. Desertification in the Aral Sea region Asomitdin A. Rafikov
5. Climate fluctuation and change in the Aral Sea Basin within the last 50 years Alexsander N. Zolotokrylin
6. Priaralye ecosystems and creeping environmental changes in the Aral Sea Nina M. Mozikova
7. Public health in the Aral Sea coastal region and the dynamics of changes in the ecological situation Leonid I. Elpiner
8. The impact of political ideology on creeping environmental changes in the Aral Sea Basin Igor S. Zonn
9. Change of the rivers' flow in the Aral Sea Basin (in connection with the problem of quantitative assessment and consideration of environmental after-effects) K. V. Tsytsenko and V. V. Sumarokova
10. Fish population as an ecosystem component and economic object in the Aral Sea Iliya Zholdasova
11. Creeping environmental changes in the Karakum Canal's zone of impact Nikolay S. Orlovsky
12. Environmental changes in the Uzbek part of the Aral Sea Basin Anatolyi Krutov
13. Creeping changes in biological communities in the Aral Sea N.V. Aladin
Index.

Subject Areas: Environmental science, engineering & technology [TQ], Sustainability [RNU], Pollution & threats to the environment [RNP]