How do the environmental problems of Mono Lake and the Aral Sea differ?

Is it possible to restore the Aral Sea to its former size?

• Formerly one of the four http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_lakes in the world with an area of 68,000 square kilometres (26,300 sq mi), the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union irrigation projects. By 2007, it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into four lakes – the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Aral_Sea, the eastern and western basins of the once far larger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Aral_Sea, and one smaller lake between the North and South Aral Seas.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea#cite_note-sciam-4 By 2009, the southeastern lake had disappeared and the southwestern lake had retreated to a thin strip at the extreme west of the former southern sea. The maximum depth of the North Aral Sea is 42 m (138 ft) (as of 2008). The shrinking of the Aral Sea has been called "one of the planet's worst environmental disasters". The region's once prosperous fishing industry has been essentially destroyed, bringing unemployment and economic hardship. The Aral Sea region is also heavily polluted, with consequent serious http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_health_problems_in_the_Aral_Sea_region. The retreat of the sea has reportedly also caused local climate change, with summers becoming hotter and drier, and winters colder and longer.

• Answer:

  Theoretically Yes but to be honest, mostly no.. It would take tremendous amount of resources and will power from not only the governments of the surrounding area but also the people.. And Aral Sea was depleted by the lots of irrigation canals..  A project was taken up by one of the governments to restore little bit of Aral Sea and some improvement has been seen. Similarly, many other agencies have also been formed. But as you can see, the major part is central and south parts which have all but vanished .. And there's talk of oil and gas exploration with China, so good luck with that.. This rather highlights the need of sustainable development and allowing nature to replenish itself rather than ruthlessly exploiting it and then waking up and saying oh, we have a disaster on our hands... We are seeing incessant exploitation, for ex., destruction of Amazon forests (Lungs of our earth) for land and wood, shrinking of Red Sea (Dead Sea) because of irrigation. If we dont wake up as one, you will continue to read about many more Aral seas...