Halfway around the world, an ecological catastrophe is occurring at this very moment. The Aral Sea, a landlocked saltwater sea in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, is shrinking. Once the fourth largest inland body of water in the world, the Aral Sea has lost about two-thirds of its volume!
The problem extends back to the early 1960's. The two rivers that feed the Aral Sea, the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya, were diverted and used as the main source of irrigation for the newly-planted cotton crop. This greatly reduced the flow of fresh water into the Sea. This, in turn, increased the salt content of the water to four times its natural level. As the Sea began to shrink, the quality of the remaining water deteriorated. The increase in salinity killed the fish that once thrived there, and brought an abrupt halt to the fishing industry in the region.
More than 27,000 square kilometers of former sea bottom are now dry surface. The strong northeast winds produce dust storms, which scour the seabed, lifting and scattering salt and pesticide residues over the entire region. This has had disastrous effects, not only on the crops growing nearby, but also on the health of the people living in the region. Over 200,000 tons of salt, sand, and chemical residue are scattered over the entire region by the wind every day!
Between 1960 and 2002, the surface area of the Aral Sea shrunk by half. If the surface area in 1960 was 66,456 square kilometers, and the area of the state of Rhode Island is 2,706 square kilometers, how many "Rhode Islands" would fit in an area equal in size to the area that used to be part of the Aral Sea? What was the average amount of surface area lost each year? (Answers to the nearest tenth, please.)