World's Largest Inland Sea Is Shrinking

The Caspian Sea is shrinking, with what Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev describes as "catastrophic" consequences. Reuters reports that he brought up the receding sea during a recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where he said the two agreed to analyze the predicament. The Caspian Sea is the largest inland sea (spanning about the size of Norway), and is surrounded by five countries (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Iran, and Turkmenistan). Water levels have falling steadily since the 1990s, and according to Le Monde, the sea is shrinking about 10 inches per year. Its depth has receded an estimated six and a half feet since 2000.

"From the window of the room in which we were negotiating, I showed (Putin) the rocks that were under water just two years ago," Aliyev said. "Today they have already emerged a meter above the surface." The Guardian reports that entire bays have disappeared, particularly on the northern coast, and it examines the "natural and human-made" reasons the sea is shrinking. Higher temperatures, a lack of rain, and increased evaporation linked to climate change are seen as big factors.

Meanwhile, industry, dams, reservoirs, and extraction from the Volga and Ural river tributaries, which replenish the sea, have worsened the problem. Pollution and the loss of water is disruptive to the fishing industry there, as well as the animal population, including the rare Caspian seal, whose numbers have plummeted from 11 million a century ago to between 110,000 to 170,000 today. (The UN chief, meanwhile, is worried about steadily rising ocean levels.)