Already in my twelfth week, I find myself on the edge of Uzbekistan—in Nukus, in the arid expanse of Karakalpakstan, where the Aral Sea catastrophe began unfolding more than sixty years ago. Working here as part of a team of 22 international and local experts focused on water and food systems, we look not only at what has been lost, but also at the adaptive ways of living that continue to emerge.
In our first weeks, we witnessed the aftermath firsthand: a landscape marked not by the simple absence of water, but by its diversion, its instability, and the gradual unraveling of the systems that once sustained life around it.
As we spent more time in the region, our questions shifted. What happens to a place when water no longer arrives as it once did? What unravels, and what adapts in response?
From there, the questions became more pointed. Who decides how water is used, and for whose benefit? Which systems hold, and which ones extract until there is nothing left? What stands in the way of organizing life at the scale of the landscape itself?
Although the catastrophe is decades old, its effects remain uneven. There are stark sociocultural and economic disparities between regions—especially between the northwest, where desiccation has devastated livelihoods, health, and local economies, and the more stable northeastern parts of the country.
At the
@aral.school , these realities are not abstract. The further we move into rural areas, the more inseparable land, people, and livelihood become. Here, life follows the conditions of the land.
Yet this region is not only a site of loss; it is also a repository of knowledge. For centuries, communities around the Aral Sea adapted to shifting river courses, fluctuating water levels, and an unpredictable climate, developing livelihoods rooted in semi-nomadism, seasonality, and close ecological awareness.
The question, then, is not simply how to respond to crisis, but how to translate these ways of living into a bioregional strategy—one that works with, rather than against, the rhythms and limits of the landscape.
The programme is supported by
@acdfuz .
#Bioregioning #RegenerativeDesign #DesignResearch #AralSea
