Creeping environmental problems and sustainable development in the Aral Sea basin / edited by Michael H. Glantz.

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Introduction / Michael H. Glantz -- 1. Sustainable development and creeping environmental problems in the Aral Sea region / Michael H. Glantz -- 2. Ecological disaster linked to landscape composition changes in the Aral Sea basin / Elisabeth A. Vostokova -- 3. Alteration of water level and salinity of the Aral Sea / Vitalyi N. Bortnik -- 4. Desertification in the Aral Sea region / Asomitdin A. Rafikov -- 5. Climate fluctuations and change in the Aral Sea basin within the last 50 years / Alexander N. Zolotokrylin -- 6. Priaralye ecosystems and creeping environmental changes in the Aral Sea / Nina M. Novikova -- 7. Public health in the Aral Sea coastal region and the dynamics of changes in the ecological situation / Leonid I. Elpiner -- 8. The impact of political ideology on creeping environmental changes in the Aral Sea basin / Igor S. Zonn -- 9. Change of the rivers' flow in the Aral Sea basin (in connection with the problem of quantitative assessment and consideration of environmental after-effects) / K. V. Tsytsenko and V. V. Sumarokova -- 10. Fish population as an ecosystem component and economic object in the Aral Sea basin / Iliya Zholdasova -- 11. Creeping environmental changes in the Karakum Canal's zone of impact / Nikolai S. Orlovsky -- 12. Environmental changes in the Uzbek part of the Aral Sea basin / Anatoly N. Krutov -- 13. Creeping changes in biological communities in the Aral Sea / Nikolai V. Aladin.

Environmental degradation in the Aral Sea basin has been a touchstone for increasing public awareness of environmental issues. The Aral crisis has been touted as a 'quiet Chernobyl' and as one of the worst human-made environmental catastrophes of the twentieth century. This multidisciplinary 1999 book comprehensively describes the slow onset of low grade but incremental changes (i.e. creeping environmental change) which affected the region and its peoples. Through a set of case studies, it describes how the region's decision-makers allowed these changes to grow into an environmental and societal nightmare. It outlines many lessons to be learned for other areas undergoing detrimental creeping environmental change, and provides an important example of how to approach such disasters for students and researchers of environmental studies, global change, political science and history.