Explanation:

Aral Sea was once a large saltwater lake of Central Asia. It straddles the boundary between Kazakhstan to the north and Uzbekistan to the south. The shallow Aral
Sea was once the world’s fourth largest body of inland water. The remnants of it nestle in the climatically inhospitable heart of Central Asia, to the east of the Caspian
Sea. The Aral Sea and its demise are of great interest and increasing concern to scientists because of the remarkable shrinkage of its area and volume that began in the second
half of the 20th century when the region was part of the Soviet Union and continued into the 21st.