Degree of Master of

Methods of data collection

The main methods for data collection include literature review, unstructured interviews, and GIS data mining. To begin with, data collection consisted of two main temporary stages:

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  Preliminary conduction of data collection before the planned research field trip; this stage included gathering of many-sided information about Aydar-Arnasay lakes system from national reports, books, journal articles and other relevant materials;
  
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  Detailed screening of the particular information about the Aydar-Arnasay lakes system based on the content of the tentative thesis chapters during the research field trip.
  

1. Literature review

To start with, the initial steps undertaken were to review the academic literature and documents in the research area. Evaluation of the relevant literature builds a logical framework for the study and demonstrates that the researcher is aware of how the issue in question has been studied before and consequently, the researcher has a particular viewpoint about the known and even the unknown problems of the study.

CEU eTD Collection
The review of existing literature assists in collecting the relevant information, opinions, and findings of different authors about the conditions and features of the Aydar-Arnasay lakes system. Therefore, literature review in the present thesis includes evaluation of various materials such as national reports, books, journal articles, programme documents, action plans, and others. On-line electronic resources were also used mostly from such international organizations as United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), World Bank, Interstate Commission for Water Coordination (ICWC), and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Furthermore, particular consideration was given to the literature in relation to fisheries development in the Aydar-Arnasay lakes and historical stages of the AALS formation. It is worth mentioning that this literature was gathered in Russian, and was translated into English by the author.
Due to lack of resources on the thesis topic in the library of the Central European University (CEU), there was a need to visit and search in the libraries of the Faculty of
Geography (Moscow State University) and Institute of Geography (the Russian Academy of Science), which offer a collection of relevant literature, especially information about the historical stages of the Aydar-Arnasay lakes system.
The literature review is based on such topics as the consequences of the Aral Sea desiccation, hydrological research conducted, and overview of the fisheries evolution in the AALS (Chapter 2). Besides, the literature review gives a detailed description of scenario approach and environmental modeling, outlines the remarkable examples of the projects related to these methods (Chapter 2), and provides an overview of GIS technologies, including remote sensing, one of the main methods used in the present work to analyze change dynamics of the AALS water surface area (Chapter 4). Finally, the review of contemporary literature about the AALS ecological conditions and main problems provides a good background for the elaboration of the AALS water management scenarios (Chapter 5).
Apart from using various books, journal article and other sources of information listed above, the bulk of information derives from archival research. The most important information, which was found in the archives of the VASKhNIL library (the acronym stands for Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences), was about the evolution of the Aydar- Arnasay lakes system and prime stages of its historical development.

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