Dynamics of the Economic-Ecological System of Aral Sea

Paper deals with the implementation of the system dynamics model of the Aral Sea. The proposed model focuses on the impact of the agricultural use of the water and its influence on the environment in the Republic of Uzbekistan. The model explains the causality of agroeconomic activity in the examined area and the enormous decrease of the water in the lake known as the Aral Sea but also the significant deterioration of water's quality in it, namely its salinity. The paper presents the stock and flow diagram, which describes the basic demographical structure, its connection to the agricultural subsystem and the impact of agriculture on the flow of the river Amu Darya. The construction of the simulation model is described, estimation of the parameters and model validation are discussed. The last part of the paper shows the baseline scenario behaviour of the core variables, such as the volume of water flowing to the Aral Sea, the volume of the lake and salinity. The text is closed with the discussion and model limitations.