The disappearance of the Aral sea ranks among the all time global environmental catastrophes. Over the course of just a few short decades backward and short sighted economic policy resulted in the destruction of the world's 4th largest lake. It has been called a “Quiet Chernobyl” by some academics. On the surface the reasons for the full evaporation can be summed up quickly by scientists. But the impetus behind those decisions is certainly worth diving into.

From the start, Soviet agricultural policy was unique amongst almost every world government throughout history. The unique combination of totalitarianism, a massive pool of manpower, and a radical ideology produced some interesting agricultural policies, as did the very similar communist China. The widely despised policy of collectivization aimed to take land away from the private landowners called “Kulaks” and give it to communal farms. This policy famously backfired and resulted in the famine known as the Holodomor. The widespread Ukrainian famine, combined with the export of grain and lack of import to make up for it resulted in the deaths of millions of Ukrainians. This was one of the first examples of Soviet shortsightedness in their agricultural policy.

 By the 1960’s Central Asia was already one of the world's largest cotton producing regions, however the Soviet economy needed to expand in order to keep up with the roaring U.S economy of the era. To do this they would need to increase the water supply going to Uzbekistan. There was a large system of tributary rivers leading to the Aral sea that kept it from evaporating, these would be the source of the Soviet’s water. As a result of these the Aral sea would gradually evaporate over the coming decades. By the 2010’s the Aral sea had gone from the world's 4th to the world's 10th largest inland sea. Its salinity has been gradually increasing, leading to it becoming a “Dead Sea” uninhabitable for most forms of fish. In the pursuit of short term agricultural gain, the Soviet government destroyed the long term fishing economy of the Aral sea forever, unless drastic actions were taken.