WI Stalin tried to drain the Caspian Sea?

I have to wonder about the wisdom of diverting huge amounts of water to semi-desert regions like the Kazakh steppes. Generally, dumping tons of water on dry areas is bad for the soil... you can get salt/alkali pooling on the surface, basically ruining any productivity it has. You can increase productivity of such areas by a slow and measured addition of water, but this plan don't sound like that...
 
I have to wonder about the wisdom of diverting huge amounts of water to semi-desert regions like the Kazakh steppes. Generally, dumping tons of water on dry areas is bad for the soil... you can get salt/alkali pooling on the surface, basically ruining any productivity it has. You can increase productivity of such areas by a slow and measured addition of water, but this plan don't sound like that...
Oh it's a terrible idea. One of several terrible ideas that make up this plan.
 
Oh it's a terrible idea. One of several terrible ideas that make up this plan.

Indeed. I think that there is serious prospect of long-term damage, given the shallowness of the northern part of the sea. If the rediverted Volga (or other rivers) find more productive uses elsewhere, then even once the scale of the damage becomes clear the beneficiaries may not fix the situation.
 
Indeed. I think that there is serious prospect of long-term damage, given the shallowness of the northern part of the sea. If the rediverted Volga (or other rivers) find more productive uses elsewhere, then even once the scale of the damage becomes clear the beneficiaries may not fix the situation.
Absolutely. It'd be even worse than the Aral sea disaster. Based on some quick estimates of the pre-stupidity volume of the Aral sea (~1960) that lake produced about 22 billion tonnes of outflow per annum while the Caspian produces about 350 billion. So expect the results of the Aral sea writ large.

BTW the results of the Aral sea disaster include:
  • Around fifty million tonnes of salt and dust introduced into the atmosphere annually
  • This creates dust plumes up to 400km long and 40km wide, with dust storms found up to 300km away
  • Serious localised public health problems (within several hundred kilometres) including a massive rate of female urogenital problems[1] (about half the female population, over two million of them[2]) which contributes to the extraordinarily high child and maternal mortality rates (twelve and thirty-five times those of Russia[3])
  • Significant local climate alteration (for several hundred kilometres) with hotter summers, colder winters and less precipitation
  • Ecosystem deterioration that effects both subsistence and export crops. Less rainfall means more need for irrigation, which (in addition to worsening the general situation) also introduces salt into the soil. In Uzbekistan the cotton crop (about one-sixth of income derives from cotton and it employs over a million people) requires about four times as much water as it should, due to the salinity.
  • To continue my previous point, this means more fertilisers are needed to compensate for loss of soil nutrients[4].
  • Biodoversity has ceased to exist, over three hundred and fifty species are extinct.


Now make this screw-up ten to fifteen times bigger. And don't forget Iran[6]...







[1] Including inflammation of the gastro-enteric system and of the vulva, vaginal dysbiosis and bacterial vaginosis.
[2] The Aral Sea Basin is very highly populated.
[3] The only country with worse maternal mortality is South Sudan. Seriously the ASB (Aral Sea Basin) has worse maternal mortality than Chad, Sierra Leone, or Somalia. This is not a good thing by any standard.
[4] And lots of pesticides. About twenty times what other growing areas use. The nitrate and pesticide levels in crops (subsistence and cash) are often several times maximum permitted levels. Oh and the slavery[5]
[5] What better way to reduce costs than not paying the people doing the work? I refer you to Anti-Slavery International who described the situation as "appalling".
[6] For a really interesting variation on this theme delay the project until a decade or two after the Brits (and their Yank poodles) put Pahlavi back into power.
 
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