Having been the fourth largest lake on the globe roughly 50 years ago, today the Aral Sea no longer exists. Human activities caused its desiccation and the formation of a huge new desert, the Aralkum, which can be regarded as one of the greatest ecological catastrophes and - at the same time - the largest primary succession experiment of mankind.

This volume brings together the results of international and interdisciplinary long-term studies on the new desert ecosystem and is divided into four main sections. The first section provides an overview of the physical characteristics of...