The ancient trade networks and modern seismic hazards emphasize the interplay between natural forces and human settlement in Iran’s volatile northern regions. The southern Caspian Sea coast lies ...

Damming, over-extraction, pollution and, increasingly, the human-caused climate crisis are driving the decline of the Caspian Sea. Some experts fear it’s being pushed to the point of no return.

As a result, much less water has been flowing into the Caspian Sea,” Kozybakov told Al Jazeera. “A hundred years ago, the sturgeon would live for many decades, and no one would touch it.

Water levels in the Caspian Sea, which sits below sea level, have been falling almost continuously since 1996, and faster still since 2006. By 2100, water levels could plummet by between 9 and 18 ...

The Caspian Sea is drying up. The world’s largest inland body of water has dropped by two metres since the mid-1990s, shrinking by 15,000 square km, an area bigger than Connecticut.

Kozybakov did not like it. It was salty and “smelled like the sea”, said Kozybakov, an ecologist, now 51. He grew up in Aktau, a city in western Kazakhstan on the shores of the Caspian Sea.