The huge lake that borders 2 countries and has become the world's youngest desert

that once covered a whopping 26million square miles is now home to one of the earth's youngest deserts. The Aral Sea once sat on the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and was the fourth largest inland water body on the planet, supplied by the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers. In the 1960s, when both countries were , the government decided to divert the two rivers that fed it to provide irrigation for new agricultural ventures.

Chief among them was the cultivation of cotton in Uzbekistan. But while the irrigation made led to blooming in the desert, it had catastrophic results, with the water became polluted with fertiliser and pesticides, according to . The waters' rich fish life were killed by the saltiness of the water, and two decades on it had split into two different lakes as water continued to be diverted. By the 2010s large areas had completely dried up.

The rapid destruction of the body of water and its ecosystem was disastrous for the fishing industry there, and left behind a huge man-made desert on the seabed it once occupied, now known as the Aralkum Desert. Abandoned shipping vessels can still be seen to this day, rusted relics of a once bustling industry.

Researchers say the wasteland that was created has also brought health impacts for the wider region.

In a report, experts at the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) and Freie Universität Berlin previously wrote: "The dust not only endangers residents in the region, but also affects air quality in the capitals of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan."

However, the waters haven't completely disappeared, splitting into two distinct bodies of waters, the North and South Aral.

Though the South Aral is said to be largely dessicated these days, the construction by Kazakhstan of a dam and other measures have seen water levels in the North rebound significantly, Earth Observatory says.

Completed in 2005, the Kok-Aral dike and dam prevents water flowing out from the higher elevation North Aral southward leading to a decrease in salinity and fisheries to rebound.

Freshwater species also returned, including the valuable pike-perch, aps, catfish, and breams, as per BBC Future.