Which of the following has/have shrunk immensely/dried up in the recent past due to human activities? 1) Aral Sea 2) Black Sea 3) Lake Baikal Select the correct answer using the code given below:

Only the Aral Sea fits, so statement 1 alone is correct. The Aral Sea lies between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and was fed by the Amu Darya and Syr Darya. From the 1960s, Soviet planners diverted these rivers heavily for cotton and rice irrigation. The inflow collapsed, the sea lost roughly 90 percent of its area, and it split into the Northern (Small) Aral and the Southern Aral, which has largely dried in places. This is a textbook case of human-induced desiccation.

Statement 2 is wrong. The Black Sea is a large, deep marginal sea linked to the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus, Sea of Marmara and Dardanelles. Its problems are eutrophication, pollution and overfishing, not shrinkage.

Statement 3 is wrong. Lake Baikal in Siberia is the world's deepest and oldest freshwater lake, holding about a fifth of the world's unfrozen surface freshwater. Its concerns are pollution and warming, not drying up.

Core concept: anthropogenic water diversion and transboundary river management. Mains link: GS-III water resources, and GS-II on inter-state and transboundary water sharing. Central Asian water disputes still trace back to the Aral crisis.

Trap: candidates pick the Black Sea because news reports on its pollution and dead zones get mixed up with shrinkage. Shrinkage through diversion is the Aral Sea story.