The bank estimates that by 2015 the project could raise water levels to Aralsk, which now stands 15 miles from the water. The people in the region may see their economy revitalize as large-scale fishing and farming will return.

"As poor people around the world struggle to keep food on their tables in the face of rising prices, it is gratifying to see that Kazakhstan has found a way to give back fishermen and their families their way of life on the Northern Aral Sea," said Robert Zoellick, World Bank Group President.

Improved water quality boosted fish stocks, enabling fisherman to increase catches to around 2,000 tons last year, up from a meager 52 tons in 2004, the World Bank said.

The return of the Northern Aral Sea has had a ripple effect across the economy in the area. Prior to 2004, there were only two fish processing plants. But since 2004, two more plants and fish receiving centers have opened, with two more to open sometime in 2008. And for the first time in many years, freshwater fish were exported this year to Georgia, Russia and Ukraine. Fish hatcheries are expected to release 15 million fingerlings next year, including the reintroduction of sturgeon.

But as the northern region flourishes, the southern part of the sea, located in Uzbekistan, remains damaged. What was once the Aral Sea lay on the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and was once the world’s fourth-largest lake. But Soviet irrigation projects caused the sea to shrink by almost 70 per cent between 1960 and 2004. In the early 1990s, the sea split into two.

"What the Kazakhs are doing is a good thing, they are making positive developments in restoring what can be called the ’Little Aral’," said Robert Zoellick. "The Aral at large, in the context of a whole ecosystem, is not going to be salvageable at all. The damage has gone too far."