''Once a poster child for environmental disaster, the Aral Sea is making an unexpected comeback, and it's making waves for all the right reasons.
Since 2023, roughly 5 billion cubic meters of water have flowed into the basin, lifting reserves to 24.1 billion cubic meters. To put that in perspective, Kazakhstan didn't expect to hit that milestone until 2029.
The Aral Sea once ranked among the world's largest inland bodies of water before decades of overuse and poor water management left it largely dried up. That collapse devastated ecosystems, worsened dust storms, and pushed communities into economic decline.''