this is the Aral Sea. In the 1960s, Soviet researchers predicted the complete evaporation of the body of water, and a river used to irrigate farmland had the excess water siphoned into the lake. This was, however, expensive, and during the privitisations (and subsequent economic catastrophe) of the 1980s, the plan was abandoned. After Kazakhstan seceded, ultra-intensive cotton farming practices and infrastructure mismanagement (most water running through irrigation to the farms evaporated on the way there) accelerated the shrinkage. Most of the former Aral Sea is a desert.