Environmental Disasters

No	Category	Disaster	Area	Period of apparition	Impact	Details	Innitiatives
No	Category	Disaster	Area	Period of apparition	Impact	Details	Innitiatives
1	Agricultural	Mismanagement and shrinking of the Aral Sea "one of the planet's worst environmental disasters"	Aral Sea	since the 1960s	The ecosystems of the Aral Sea and the river deltas feeding into it have been nearly destroyed, not least because of the much higher salinity. The receding sea has left huge plains covered with salt and toxic chemicals – the results of weapons testing, industrial projects, and pesticides and fertilizer runoff – which are picked up and carried away by the wind as toxic dust and spread to the surrounding area. The land around the Aral Sea is heavily polluted, and the people living in the area are suffering from a lack of fresh water and health problems, including high rates of certain forms of cancer and lung diseases. The Aral Sea fishing industry, which in its heyday had employed some 40,000 and reportedly produced one-sixth of the Soviet Union's entire fish catch, has been devastated, and former fishing towns along the original shores have become ship graveyards. The overall cost of the damage to the region has been estimated at 35–40 billion roubles (£800 million).	Formerly one of the four largest lakes in the world with an area of 68,000 km2, the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects. By 2007, it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into four lakes – the North Aral Sea, the eastern and western basins of the once far larger South Aral Sea, and one smaller lake between the North and South Aral Seas. By 2009, the southeastern lake had disappeared and the southwestern lake had retreated to a thin strip at the extreme west of the former southern sea; in subsequent years, occasional water flows have led to the southeastern lake sometimes being replenished to a small degree. Satellite images taken by NASA in August 2014 revealed that for the first time in modern history the eastern basin of the Aral Sea had completely dried up. The eastern basin is now called the Aralkum desert.	In an ongoing effort in Kazakhstan to save and replenish the North Aral Sea, a dam project was completed in 2005; in 2008, the water level in this lake had risen by 12m, compared to 2003. Many different solutions to the problems have been suggested, including: Improving the quality of irrigation canals Installing desalination plants Charging farmers to use the water from the rivers Using alternative cotton species that require less water Promoting non-agricultural economic development in upstream countries Using fewer chemicals on the cotton Cultivating crops other than cotton Installing dams to fill the Aral Sea Redirecting water from the Volga, Ob and Irtysh Rivers to restore the Aral Sea to its former size in 20–30 years (cost of US$30–50 billion) Pumping sea water into the Aral Sea from the Caspian Sea via a pipeline, and diluting it with fresh water from local catchment areas
2	Agricultural	Salinity in Australia	Australia	By 1999 an estimated 2.5 million hectares of land had become salinised since the introduction of European farming methods	Over time this process has caused the thin top-soil layers to become irreversibly salty, and no longer suited for agriculture. Currently, around 5.7 million hectares of land is classed as having 'high potential' for salinisation, which that number expected to rise to 17 million hectares by 2050.	An increase in salt can decrease the ability of plants to absorb water through their roots via osmosis, cause leaf burn and necrosis through increased levels of sodium and chloride, and create nutrient and ionic imbalances, resulting in poor growth, and death.	Possible management strategies include: The use of salt-tolerant plants, such as: Atriplex amnicola Saltgrow - a hybrid gum tree being utilized within Australia to try to reverse damage within affected high-salinity areas. The tree has been highly successful, and has been attributed to be able to completely remove salinity within damaged areas and allowed new grasses and shrubs that are not salt resistant, to grow. The use of perennial crops and pastures Engineering responses including deep drainage and pumping (to lower groundwater) Reverse banks and interceptor banks (to divert surface water) Revegetation with native species Establishing trees Preventing further clearing in vulnerable areas
3	Agricultural	Salinization of the Fertile Crescent
4	Agricultural	The Dust Bowl in Canada and the United States	Canada	1934–1939
5	Agricultural	The Great sparrow campaign; sparrows were eliminated from Chinese farms, which caused locusts to swarm the farms and contributed to a famine which killed 38 million people.
6	Agricultural	Africanized bees, known colloquially as "killer bees"
7	Agricultural	"Dirty dairying" in New Zealand	New Zealand
8	Biodiversity	Chestnut blight
9	Biodiversity	Extinction of American megafauna
10	Biodiversity	Extinction of Australian megafauna


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