This area is part of the Turkestan desert, which is the fourth largest desert in the world; it is produced from a rain shadow effect by Afghanistan’s high mountains to the south. In the early 1960s th...This area is part of the Turkestan desert, which is the fourth largest desert in the world; it is produced from a rain shadow effect by Afghanistan’s high mountains to the south. In the early 1960s the then-Soviet Union diverted the Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers for irrigation of one of the driest parts of Asia to produce rice, melons, cereals, and especially cotton. The destruction of the Aral Sea is one of the planet’s biggest environmental disasters and it is caused entirely by humans.
