<Li> <P> Ships of Imperial Russian Navy's Aral Flotilla in the 1850s </P> </Li> <P> Ships of Imperial Russian Navy's Aral Flotilla in the 1850s </P> <P> In the early 1960s, the Soviet government decided the two rivers that fed the Aral Sea, the Amu Darya in the south and the Syr Darya in the east, would be diverted to irrigate the desert, in an attempt to grow rice, melons, cereals, and cotton . </P> <P> This was part of the Soviet plan for cotton, or "white gold", to become a major export . This temporarily succeeded, and in 1988, Uzbekistan was the world's largest exporter of cotton . </P>

Where does the aral sea get its water from