Stop 1 · Niger
Nguigmi
On the former northern shore of Lake Chad, which has shrunk from about 25,000 km² in the 1960s to under 2,500 km². By the 2000s the nearest water was at Doro, 45 km southwest.
Former waterfront towns stranded by a vanishing lake or sea
Five places that were built on a shore — with harbours, fishing fleets, canneries, beach resorts — and then watched the water walk away from them, in some cases by more than a hundred kilometres.
The five stops
Stop 2 · Kazakhstan
Aralsk
A former Aral Sea port; the sea began shrinking in 1960 after Soviet irrigation diverted the Syr Darya and Amu Darya. The Kokaral Dam (2005) restored the North Aral to about 12 km from town. The 1971 smallpox outbreak came from the Vozrozhdeniya Island test site.
Stop 3 · Uzbekistan
Moynaq
Former Aral Sea port in Karakalpakstan; the water is now some 150 km away. The ship graveyard is the town's monument; the Stihia festival has run there since 2018.
Stop 4 · United States
Bombay Beach
On the Salton Sea, formed by the 1905–07 Colorado River breach; the town lies 223 ft below sea level. Salinity is about twice the ocean's. The Bombay Beach Biennale began in 2016.
Stop 5 · Bolivia
Poopó
On the former shore of Lake Poopó, once Bolivia's second-largest lake (about 3,000 km², under 3 m deep), declared fully evaporated in December 2015. The Uru-Murato fishing communities such as Llapallapani lost their livelihood.
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