文章预览
Water woes The Caspian Sea is shrinking rapidly This has big implications for Russia, which has come to rely on Central Asian ports FOR MANY living on Kazakhstan's coast, it was obvious long ago. The Caspian Sea is drying up. The world's largest inland body of water has dropped by two metres since the mid-1990s, shrinking by 15,000 square km, an area bigger than Connecticut. Each year in Aktau, a coastal city, the sea retreats further from the shore. Two factors lie behind the Caspian's decline. Growing water use along Russia's Volga river, which provides 80-90% of the Caspian's inflows, has caused volumes entering the sea to drop. Meanwhile rising temperatures have pushed up evaporation rates, leaching more water from the sea itself. Researchers at the University of Bremen predict that if global warming continues on present-day trends, the Caspian could drop by around eight metres by the end of the century. If temperatures rise faster, it could fall by as much as 20 metres. A decline
………………………………
