Climate and environmental change in arid Central Asia : Impacts, vulnerabilily and adaptations.

They are driven by multiple interconnected factors, such aschanges in atmospheric circulation associated with global warming, regional hydrologicalchanges caused by mountain-glacial melting and massive irrigation, landusechanges, as well as hydrological, biogeochemical, and meso- and microclimaticchanges in the Aral Sea and its quickly expanding exposed dry bottom. Humanvulnerability to climate change involves many dimensions, such as exposure,sensitivity, and adaptive capacity and affects various aspects of human-environmentalinteractions, such as water availability and stress, agricultural productivityand food security, water resources, human health and well-being and
many others at various spatial and temporal scales.