#low snowfall

Government officials in Kazakhstan have raised the alarm over what they say is the critically low level of the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest enclosed body of water. City hall in Aktau, the capital of the western Mangystau region, said in a statement on June 8 that it was declaring a state of emergency over a situation that it says poses a grave risk to the maritime industry. On the same day, Ecology Minister Zulfia Suleimenova described  the crisis over the Caspian as "quite complex” and attributed the ongoing contraction to dropping levels in the Ural and Volga Rivers. The troubled health of those rivers has in turn been attributed to a lack of snowfall over the winter, increased water consumption, and the retention of water for use at hydroelectric power stations in Russia. The Caspian Sea has shorelines in five countries: Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan. Of these, Kazakhstan’s section is the shallowest, which is what has prompted officials there to raise the alarm first of all.