The heart-shaped Small Aral Sea nestles amid the white salt plains of the 40,000 square kilometre Aralkum Desert, located in what remains of the northern basin of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan.
The Aral Sea used to be the world's fourth largest inland body of water, covering 68,000 square kilometres and supported a vibrant fishing economy until the rivers which fed it were diverted by Soviet Union irrigation projects in the 1960s.
The sea has been drying steadily over the past 50 years. By the end of the 1980s, the Small Aral Sea had split from the Large Aral Sea to the south. The Large Aral Sea further split into two by 2000, and its eastern section vanished last year.