Geography of Kazakhstan the water in Kazakhstan is polluted by industrial effluents, pesticide and fertilizer residue, and, in some places, radioactive elements. The most visible damage has been to the Aral Sea, which as recently as the 1970s was larger than any of the Great Lakes of North America save Lake Superior. The sea began to shrink rapidly when sharply increased irrigation and other demands on the only significant tributaries, the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya (the latter reaching the Aral from neighboring Uzbekistan), all but eliminated inflow. During the Soviet Era, Kazakhstan received water from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan,
Kazakhstan and the International Monetary Fund result, the Kazakh economy suffered. Kazakhstan responded with the depreciation of the tenge by looking into the non-oil economic sector. For example, aiding car manufacturers because or farmers for having sustained losses due to the imports of cheaper Russian goods. Kazakhstan is also vulnerable to social unrest, particularly in regions like Mangyshlak and Atyrau which depend on oil. Clashes between oil workers in western Kazakhstan and riot police in 2011 left several dead, and the Kazakh government continues to worry about this issue. The IMF has made a positive economic forecast to the Kazakh economy, expecting it's GDP to grow