Ecological problems of the West Siberian Plain. The problems of nature and man in Western Siberia

Today, in almost all countries of the world, especiallyThe issue of environmental safety is acute. There is nothing surprising in this: the rash and greedy use of natural resources has led to the fact that at the moment there is a danger of the disappearance not only of most of the animals, but also of the human race itself. There is a huge amount of environmental and environmental programs that could theoretically help to cope with all the problems. But, as it usually happens, everything is good only on paper.

This is especially true of our country.Unfortunately, the issue of the ecological condition of the locality always remains at the very end of the priorities. Once it did not cause any special problems, but times change, and the intensity of pollution of our own land is growing at an alarming rate. Of course, modern civilization can not exist without all the benefits that it gives developed industry. Unfortunately, manufacturers often deliberately shy away from compliance with basic environmental standards, as a result of which the situation with environmental pollution is becoming more and more sad.

One must never forget that without nature there is norights. On how well we will protect the environment, the well-being of our own children depends in the future, so you should not tolerate this issue admirably.

Accelerated in recent years, industrial development of the country positively affects the economy, but here the environmental problems of the West Siberian Plain because of this increase every year.

It should be remembered that the weakest link in theall environmental activities are economic benefits. Even the installation of simple treatment facilities is extremely expensive, and therefore the management of enterprises often "forgets" about them, preferring to pay less significant fines.

Needless to say, without real supportthe state, which would allocate funds for the purchase of such equipment, without subsidizing the deployment of integrated environmental protection activities should not even dream of improving the environmental situation in our country.

This is especially true of Western Siberia. This district is so peculiar that he should dedicate an entire article.

Introduction

By the way, where is the West Siberian Plain? It is located all over the territory from the Ural mountains to the Central Siberian plateau, occupying a giant square.

Western Siberia - the region is unique.It looks like a gigantic bowl in which a fairly heavy climate reigns. The age of the West Siberian Plain is at least 25 million years old. In addition, it is unique in its geological development: for thousands of years, this area has consistently been raised and lowered, because of which a truly unusual and complex terrain has formed. However, the average heights of the West Siberian Plain are small: on all its length they rarely exceed the mark of 50-150 meters above sea level.

The main elements of the relief are the plains andriverbeds. In places the plain acquires distinctly pronounced features of a hilly folded area. In the southern part of Western Siberia, such a structure of the terrain is most common. A lot of river plains, formed in the conditions of a large number of large rivers with a slow current, complete the picture. This is where the West Siberian Plain lies.

Main characteristics of the area

As we have already said, the climate here is veryspecific. Thus, southern territories are characterized by pronounced continental climate. Because the shape of the relief of the West Siberian Plain is a kind of bowl (see above), there is no significant movement of air masses within it. Therefore, there are no sharp changes in the temperature regime throughout the whole winter. And it is all the more surprising that the extent of the West Siberian Plain is almost 2500 thousand kilometers!

So, even in Barnaul, the temperature is oftenfalls to -45 degrees Celsius, but the same temperature is observed in the northern part of the plain, although it is more than two thousand kilometers up to it. Spring is quite long, relatively dry. April in full understanding of this word is not a spring month.

In May, the temperature rises sharply, but due tothe movement of air masses from the ocean colds often return, and in some cases snow may fall out. In July, the average air temperature can reach +22 degrees Celsius (but not more than 5 degrees in the northern part). Since the average elevations of the West Siberian Plain are small, often there are strong piercing winds.

The main reasons for the severe environmental situation in the region

Во-первых, сложившееся положение связано с тем, that in recent years the intensity of the extraction of natural resources has been increasing in an explosive manner. In Western Siberia, has several industries that cause damage to the nature of the most pronounced: pulp and paper, food processing, oil production and forestry. Do not forget about the explosive growth in the number of personal road transport, which also contributes to the process of environmental pollution.

Unfortunately, this phenomenon is boosted even byagriculture: in recent years in Western Siberia, quite a lot of mineral fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides are used. In addition, local authorities are not at all interested in any actions with regard to landfills.

Many of them have long been closed, but continueregularly burn every summer, often bringing the inhabitants of nearby settlements to resuscitation. Due to the fact that the shape of the relief of the West Siberian Plain resembles a bowl, it could last for several months over the cities. The simplest statistics of hospitals testify that at this time the situation with respiratory diseases is catastrophically complicated.

Finally, we are extremely irrational useirreplaceable resources of the West Siberian Plain. The reasons should be sought even in royal times. Then, as in the Soviet period, they first began to exploit the most easily accessible and richest deposits, at the same time harassing all nearby forests. If you are familiar with a brief description of the West Siberian Plain, then you probably know that there are not too many forests on its territory. At one time, their crowns were noisy almost throughout the district, but due to the rapid industrialization of the country, almost all of them were completely destroyed.

And only then began to develop long-range fields, which, because of the imperfection of the technological base, were quickly depleted.

In addition, most of the raw materials in these depositsstayed there. The reason is still the same backward technology. Now you can get to these reserves, but you have to pay for this by high labor-intensive work and a huge number of dumps. Today they do it more often. The results are deplorable: an incredible amount of slag simply litters the ground, and its mass leads to the lowering of the earth's surface. As a result, underground rivers become shallow and completely stop, karst rifts appear, near which any industrial activity is extremely dangerous.

Since the age of the West Siberian Plain is about 25-30 million years, there is a lot of wealth in its depths. But do not assume that their reserves are limitless.

Another reason is inertia of thinking and following.technocratic dogmas. Many people still believe in a certain "superpowering" of man, which allows him not to reckon with nature. They forget that the biosphere is not only an extremely complex, but also a very fragile mechanism, inept and wasteless intervention in which is fraught with major troubles for all of humanity.

However, we have already managed to verify this:constant climatic "frills", when the lack of snow in January or snowfall in June no longer surprise anyone, the sharply increased occurrence of tsunamis and tornadoes, the death of huge amounts of fish as a result of emissions of toxic substances into rivers. Against this background, the characteristic of the West Siberian Plain as an “extremely polluted” place no longer looks so depressing, although all these phenomena are links of the same chain.

Influence of anthropogenic factors

A number of cities in this area are actually located inzone of permanent ecological crisis. The main reason for this situation is the apparent discrepancy between the volume of environmental management and measures to protect the environment. Simply put, the same oil production is constantly increasing, but there are almost no measures to clean up the environment from spilled oil.

In addition, there are many nuclear facilities in the region.spheres, the state of which in many cases is very far from ideal. Since the height of the West Siberian Plain is small (less likely to spread the infection quickly), it was this region that was chosen by the Soviet leadership for testing nuclear weapons. The consequences of this are felt by residents of the area to this day.

We did not accidentally talk so much aboutnatural and climatic features of this area at the very beginning of the article (such as the height of the West Siberian Plain): the same permafrost everywhere present in the northern part of the plain is a factor contributing to the increase in environmental tensions. In addition, the absence of significant air movements in winter time leads to an accelerated accumulation of smog masses over large industrial cities, which are numerous in this area.

Studies clearly show that the mostSignificant environmental problems of the West Siberian Plain are characteristic of the Altai Territory, the Tomsk Region, and the Omsk Region and the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. In these areas, the risk to human health is exceeded by 80-85%! In general, such problem areas occupy about 15% of the entire territory of Western Siberia.

Characterization of hazardous emissions

In Kemerovo, Novokuznetsk, Prokopyevsk, andTomsk, Omsk, Barnaul and Tyumen (to a lesser extent) the situation becomes more and more disastrous every year. In the air, a sharply elevated content of formaldehyde, benzopyrene and phenol is observed. All these substances are the most terrible carcinogens. Add to this a huge amount of emitted soot and divalent carbon monoxide. And it is possible not to be surprised at the constantly growing number of diseases of the respiratory organs of people living in these cities. Do not forget about emissions of nitrogen dioxide, which is a strong poison.

Oil refining industry

Every year, about seven of them are burned during oil production.billion cubic meters of associated gas, which is at least 75-80% of its total volume. And this is despite the fact that its technological losses can not exceed 5%. Torches from the burning of gas in Western Siberia are perfectly visible even from space. It should be added that the degree of purification of emissions in the oil refining industry of the region does not exceed 0.015%. Thus, the environmental problems of the West Siberian Plain are largely due to the unfair attitude of large oil companies.

Radiation contamination

This is not often said, but mostThe territory of Western Siberia is in the zone of fairly significant radiation contamination of the area. The main "merit" in this belongs to the company "Himkontsentrat" ​​and "Siberian Chemical Combine." In Tomsk, where the last plant is located, a zone is contaminated in a radius of at least 100 kilometers around the city.

Do not forget that from the territory of Totsky,The Novaya Zemlya and Semipalatinsk test sites for nuclear explosions spread radiation contamination. It captures the Tomsk, Kemerovo and Novosibirsk regions. In addition, the long-suffering Altai Territory, which is already constantly infected with heptyl, falling on its land from falling rocket stages from Baikonur, was partially hit. During the period from 1953 to 1961, many explosions were carried out at these sites, the consequences of which still make themselves felt.

But that's not all.It is not customary to talk about this, but the West-Siberian Plain is in the zone of fairly strong radiation contamination, since many underground nuclear explosions were produced within its borders, the consequences of which are felt in the same Nefteyugansk. In Omsk, the central parts of the city are quite heavily contaminated with radiation, while its peripheral areas have remained virtually clean.

Water pollution

Virtually the entire territory of the West Siberianthe plains are more or less polluted by ammonium and iron salts, phenols and nitrates. Unfortunately, even this is not the most significant problem: the entire hydrographic network of the region has big problems in connection with oil production in the region. However, in the southern part of the West Siberian Plain, a relatively prosperous situation is observed in this regard.

Alas, but in other areas of the MPC (extremelythe permissible concentration of oil products in water is exceeded by five, or even 50 (!) times. This especially applies to the Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Omsk regions. It is important to understand that the entire (!!!) northern part of the long-suffering Western Siberia is infected in such a way that the MAC limits exceeded 50-100 times do not surprise anyone. And now - the worst. Experts believe that about 40% of the entire territory of the region is in a state of permanent ecological disaster, since the standards for the content of oil products in water are exceeded 100 times or more.

These are the environmental problems of the West Siberianthe plains. Summarizing, we can say that everything is not so bad everywhere. These terrifying figures are more characteristic of areas near large cities, which ensures the “average temperature in the hospital”. Everything could be much better, but the management of many enterprises is not at all interested in updating the treatment facilities (or even in their installation). But the water is one of those treasures with which the West Siberian Plain is especially rich! Photos of its majestic rivers are in the article, so you can see for yourself.

Hydrologists say the most threateningThe situation has developed in the Biysk-Novosibirsk section, where the Ob is most polluted. Just below the city of Kolpasheva, the degree of contamination of the river is also high, but at the confluence the picture becomes much better. The situation is almost identical on almost all smaller rivers in the region. However, everywhere is the same: the qualitative and quantitative pollution of the aquatic environment decreases sharply in the direction from north to south (most minerals are mined in the north).

Forest resources

Как ни странно, но использование (по официальным data, of course) Siberian forest resources are quite modest. The average volume of logging by glades does not exceed 8%, while the national average is 18%, and in some cases even more. The lack of planned thinning leads to the fact that the forest begins to age and die.

So, overripe arrays for todaymake up at least 70% of the region. All this gradually leads to the fact that in the territory of Western Siberia real “forest epidemics” are constantly erupting, caused by invasions of bore-wood worm and other pests. In addition, due to the aforementioned pollution of the water table, there are frequent cases of drying out of whole forests.

Another misfortune - fires, which in recent yearsRussian and West Siberian Plains are "famous". Approximately 65% ​​of unplanned loss of wood falls on them. Do not forget that about 25% of the taiga is located in the zone of active oil production, which again sharply increases the probability of ignition of large areas. It should be noted that the number of fires largely depends on the organization of local authorities. So, in the Kemerovo region is full of forests that are seriously affected by pests, but the losses from the fire are negligible (no more than 0.2%). This is how the West Siberian Plain is characterized in the “forest” relation. Photos of the most beautiful taiga are in our article.

Intrinsic Sustainability of Biotopes

Of course, the ecological status of biotopesWestern Siberia, like any other locality, depends largely on their own sustainability. The most important factors that in one way or another influence the degree of pollution are: waterlogging, permafrost, density of the hydrographic network. Thus, the tundras and forest-tundra are the least stable, while the desert terrain is able to withstand environmental problems for a long time. It can be concluded that the geological structure of the West Siberian Plain contributes to the unfavorable ecological situation.

The most difficult situation at the momentobserved in the Kemerovo region and Altai. In the first case, this is due to the intensive production of gas and oil, and in the second, with the work of Baikonur, since the spent first stages of launch vehicles fall on Altai. Environmentalists warn that in these areas should pay close attention to environmental protection measures.

As you can see, the environmental problems of the West Siberian Plain are diverse and very serious. If you do not take any action right now, then fix many of them will not work.