Previous Year Question

Statement 1 is correct: The Aral Sea is a landlocked saline lake located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia.

The Aral Sea was once one of the world’s largest inland lakes and an important fish-production centre of the region.

It received water mainly from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers.

From the 1960s, the waters of these rivers were diverted on a large scale for the irrigation of cotton and other crops.

A massive reduction in river inflow caused the Aral Sea to shrink rapidly and divide into several separate water bodies.

As the volume of water declined, salinity increased sharply, many fish species disappeared and the fishing industry was almost destroyed.

The exposed lakebed developed into the Aralkum Desert. Salt and dust rising from it can carry residues of agricultural chemicals over long distances.

This environmental transformation seriously affected local health, agriculture, biodiversity and the regional climate.

Dam construction and water-management efforts have produced a partial recovery in some parts of the North Aral Sea, but a large portion of the Aral Sea remains much smaller than its former extent.

Statement 2 is incorrect: The Black Sea has faced problems such as pollution, eutrophication, oxygen depletion and invasive species.

Nevertheless, the Black Sea has not recently shrunk immensely or dried up due to human activities in the manner of the Aral Sea.

Statement 3 is incorrect: Lake Baikal, located in the Siberian region of Russia, is the world’s deepest and an extremely ancient freshwater lake.

Lake Baikal faces pressures such as pollution, coastal development, eutrophication and climate change, but it has not recently shrunk immensely or dried up due to human activities.

The shrinking of the Aral Sea is one of the world’s most serious anthropogenic environmental crises caused by the unsustainable use of water resources and large-scale diversion of river water.