Kazakhstan’s mapmakers have their work cut out. No sooner do they chart the boundaries of the Aral Sea than they have to take out their pens and redraw it.

Once the world’s fourth largest inland sea, this massive expanse of water has shrunk to a tenth of its original size due to a huge irrigation project introduced in the 1960s. The fishing industry is now floundering, the flora and fauna perishing and the summers becoming hotter and hotter.

The fate of the Aral Sea is not unique. The world’s water supplies are drying up. Half of the planet’s wetlands have disappeared over the past century. In Europe, six in every 10 cities with more than 100,000 people are using their groundwater supplies at a faster rate than they are being replenished, the European Environment Agency reports.

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