essay on the aral sea
Part 2 – River Basin Transformed
My topic is on the Aral sea.
Please look at the attachment for more instructions on what to write about.
If our first installment asked you to begin several thousand years ago while beginning to look forward, the second part of the project will reverse course. This time, I would like you take me on a tour of your river basin around…today. Let’s call it the turn of the 21st Century. What has happened to the landscape and the way water circulates through it since our previous glimpse a few centuries or millennia ago?
Exactly how you choose to construct the story is up to you, but I suggest focusing on different pieces of your basin’s landscape – for instance: the delta or terminal lake, the coastal plain, the highlands and intermontane valleys…whatever fits your basin – and showing how this area has changed and why.
Keeping this suggestion in mind, the inventory that follows below should not be taken as an outline to be followed. Rather, these are a series of prompts that lay out what should be covered in one way or another. For instance, part of your paper might focus on a specific dam, and your discussion of it could skillfully integrate elements from different categories identified below:political/economic context, effects on the surrounding environment, identifying key users and stakeholders, and the nature of conflicts between them.
The assignment references the article we read in week 2:
I suggest referring to it while you work on this assignment.
Deliverables: A report, 1500-2000 words long that explains the transformation of the landscape and of the hydro-social cycle in your river basin, addressing the points laid out below. Submit to assignments – “River Basin Report Part 2.â€
