Desiccation of the Aral Sea: A Water Management Disaster of the Soviet Union

Department of Geography, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI

Philip Micklin has focused on water management issues in the former USSR since the late 1960s, with his major interest in Central Asia for the past quarter century. He was a geography professor at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo for 30 years before retiring in 1999. He received the University’s highest academic award in 1992, when named Distinguished Faculty Scholar. In 2001-2002 he served as visiting professor of Environmental Studies at Denison University in Ohio. Dr. Micklin is particularly interested in the human induced desiccation of the Aral Sea and its environmental and human consequences as well as the related problems of water sharing and water management in and among the newly independent states of Central Asia. Dr. Micklin has visited and lived in the former USSR and Central Asia many times over the past 43 years: conducting research, participating in conferences and working for the United Nations and U.S. Government. He has collaborated with Dr. Nikolay Aladin of the Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, since 1989 on Aral Sea research. In 2005 he and Dr. Aladin directed a month-long expedition to the Aral Sea funded by the National Geographic Society. They returned in September 2007 for a follow-up visit. Dr. Micklin has written several monographs, edited several books, and published more than 70 articles and chapters in books.