North Aral Sea levels further were due to begin in 2010. The Aral Sea began shrinking in the 1960s, when the Soviet Union decided that the two rivers feeding it, the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, would be diverted to irrigate cotton and food crops in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. In 1986, due to an accelerated loss of water, the Aral Sea split into northern and southern parts; the southern part is the current South Aral Sea. There is now an ongoing effort in Kazakhstan to save and replenish the North Aral Sea. As part of this effort, a dam project was completed
Carolyn Drake in the once vibrant region of central Asia that lies between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers that once nourished it. The region, encompassing Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, was transformed when the rivers were diverted for cotton irrigation by the former Soviet Union. Drake's resulting self-published book, "Two Rivers" (2013), was financed via Kickstarter; it was well received by Sean O'Hagan. For Jeffrey Ladd, the book's design (by Sybren Kuiper), notably the way some photographs on recto pages have their right edges on the verso, detracted from it. She spent seven years visiting Xinjiang in western China