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
Seto Inland Sea on a cruise on the Setuchi. Some sites along the Seto Inland Sea were featured in eighth-century Japanese literature, both in prose and in verse, including "Kojiki", "Nihon Shoki", and "Man'yōshū". Since some sites were used as places of exile, their feeling and landscape were evoked in waka. In fiction, in "The Tale of Genji", Genji fled from Kyoto and resided in Suma (now a part of Kobe) and Akashi for two years. In medieval literature, because of the Genpei War, the Seto Inland Sea is one of the important backgrounds of "The Tale of the Heike", particularly in its