Today, in almost all countries of the world, the issue of environmental safety is especially acute. There is nothing surprising in this: the thoughtless and greedy use of natural resources has led to the fact that at the moment there is a danger of extinction not only of most of the animals, but also of the human race. There is a huge amount of environmental and environmental programs that theoretically could help cope with all the problems. But, as it usually happens, everything is fine only on paper.
This is especially true of our country. Unfortunately, our question of the ecological condition of the area always remains at the very end of priorities. Once this did not cause particular problems, but times are changing, and the intensity of pollution of our own land is growing at an alarming rate. Of course, modern civilization cannot exist without all the benefits that developed industry gives it. Unfortunately, manufacturers often consciously shy away from basic environmental standards, as a result of which the situation with environmental pollution is becoming more and more sad.
We must never forget that without nature there is no man. The well-being of our own children in the future depends on how well we will protect the environment, so it’s definitely not worthwhile to treat this issue with caution.
Accelerated in recent years, the country's industrial development has a positive effect on the economy, but the environmental problems of the West Siberian Plain are growing every year because of this.
It should be remembered that the most weak link in all environmental activities is economic benefit. Even the installation of simple treatment facilities is extremely expensive, and therefore the management of enterprises often “forgets” them, preferring to pay not so significant fines.
Needless to say, without real state support that would allocate funds for the purchase of such equipment, without subsidizing the deployment of integrated environmental protection activities, one should not even dream of improving the environmental situation in our country.
This is especially true in Western Siberia. This area is so peculiar that it should devote a whole article.
Introduction
By the way, where is the West Siberian Plain located? It is located throughout the territory from the Ural Mountains to the Central Siberian Plateau, occupying a gigantic area.
Western Siberia is a unique area. It looks like a giant bowl in which a rather difficult climate reigns. The age of the West Siberian Plain is at least 25 million years. In addition, it is unique in its geological development: for thousands of years, this area has consistently risen and descended, which is why a truly unusual and complex relief has formed here. However, the average altitudes of the West Siberian Plain are small: on its entire extent they rarely exceed the mark of 50-150 meters above sea level.
The main relief elements are plains and riverbeds. In some places, the plain acquires pronounced features of a hilly folded area. In the southern part of Western Siberia, such a terrain structure is most common. Many river plains, formed in conditions of a large number of large rivers with a slow course, complete the picture. This is where the West Siberian Plain is located.
Main characteristics of the area
As we have already said, the climate here is very specific. So, the southern territories are characterized by a pronounced continental climate. Due to the fact that the relief shape of the West Siberian Plain is a kind of bowl (see above), significant movements of air masses within it do not occur. Therefore, there are no sharp changes in the temperature regime throughout the winter. And this is all the more surprising because the length of the West Siberian Plain is nearly 2500 thousand kilometers!
So, even in Barnaul, the temperature often drops 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. Spring is quite long, relatively dry. April in the full sense of the word is not a spring month.
In May, the temperature rises sharply, but due to the movement of air masses from the ocean, colds often return, and in some cases snow may fall. In July, the average air temperature can reach +22 degrees Celsius (but not more than 5 degrees in the northern part). Since the average altitudes of the West Siberian Plain are small, strong piercing winds often arise.
The main reasons for the difficult environmental situation in the region
Firstly, the current situation is connected with the fact that in recent years the intensity of extraction of natural resources has been growing like an avalanche. In Western Siberia, there are several industries that cause nature the most pronounced damage: pulp and paper, food, oil and forest. Do not forget about the explosive growth in the number of personal automobile vehicles, which also contributes to the process of environmental pollution.
Unfortunately, this phenomenon is even accelerated by agriculture: in recent years, quite a lot of mineral fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides have been used in Western Siberia. In addition, local authorities are completely not interested in at least some actions regarding landfills.
Many of them have long been closed, but continue to burn regularly every summer, often bringing residents of nearby settlements to resuscitation. Due to the fact that the relief shape of the West Siberian Plain is similar to a bowl, smog has been standing over cities for several months. The simplest statistics of hospitals indicate that at this time the situation with respiratory diseases is catastrophically complicated.
Finally, we are extremely irrationally using the irreplaceable resources of the West Siberian Plain. Reasons should be sought back in imperial times. Then, as in the Soviet period, at first they began to exploit the most easily accessible and richest deposits, simultaneously draining all nearby forests under the root. If you are familiar with a brief description of the West Siberian Plain, then you probably know that there are not many forests on its territory. Once upon a time, their crowns were noisy almost throughout the region, but due to the rapid industrialization of the country, almost all of them were completely destroyed.
And only then they started to develop distant deposits, which, due to imperfections in the technological base, were very quickly depleted.
In addition, most of the raw materials in these deposits remained there. The reason is the same backward technology. Now you can get to these reserves, but you will have to pay for it with the high complexity of work and a huge number of dumps. Today they are doing this more and more often. The results are deplorable: an incredible amount of slag simply clogs the earth, and its mass leads to the lowering of the earth's surface. As a result, underground rivers become shallow and completely stop, karst faults appear, near which any industrial activity is extremely dangerous.
Since the age of the West Siberian Plain is about 25-30 million years, there are many wealth in its bowels. But do not assume that their reserves are unlimited.
Another reason is the inertness of thinking and following technocratic dogmas. Many people still believe in a certain “superpower” 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 mismanagement in which is fraught with major troubles for all of humanity.
However, we already managed to make sure of this: constant climatic “tricks”, when nobody can surprise anyone with the lack of snow in January or snowfall in June, the tsunami and tornadoes appeared more frequently, the huge amount of fish died as a result of the release of toxic substances into rivers. Against this background, the characterization 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 in the zone of permanent environmental crisis. The main reason for this situation is the apparent discrepancy between the volumes of nature management and environmental protection measures. Simply put, the same oil production is constantly growing, but there are practically no measures to clean the environment from spilled oil.
In addition, in the region there are many nuclear facilities, the state of which in many cases is very far from ideal. Since the height of the West Siberian Plain is low (there is less likelihood of a rapid spread of infection), it was this region that was chosen by the Soviet leadership for testing nuclear weapons. Residents of the area feel the consequences to this day.
It is not by chance that we talked so much about the natural 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, which is ubiquitous in the northern part of the plain, is a factor contributing to the growth of environmental tension. In addition, the absence of significant air movements in winter leads to accelerated accumulation of smog masses over large industrial cities, of which there are many in this area.
Studies clearly show that the most significant environmental problems of the West Siberian Plain are characteristic of the Altai Territory, Tomsk Region, as well as the Omsk Region and 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.
Hazardous emission characteristics
In Kemerovo, Novokuznetsk, Prokopyevsk, as well as Tomsk, Omsk, Barnaul and Tyumen (to a lesser extent), the situation is becoming increasingly deplorable every year. In the air there is a sharp increase in the content of formaldehyde, benzapyrene and phenol. All of these substances are the worst carcinogens. Add to that the massive amount of carbon black and bivalent carbon monoxide emitted. And one can not be surprised at the ever-growing number of respiratory diseases among people living in these cities. Do not forget about the emissions of nitrogen dioxide, which is a strong poison.
Oil refining industry
Each year, about seven billion cubic meters of associated gas is burned during oil production, which is at least 75-80% of its total volume. And this despite the fact that its technological losses cannot exceed 5%. Torches from gas burning in Western Siberia are clearly 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 caused by unscrupulous attitude on the part of large oil producing companies.
Radiation contamination of the area
This is not often said, but most of the territory of Western Siberia is located in a zone of rather significant radiation pollution of the area. The main "merit" in this belongs to the enterprise "Chemical Concentrate" and "Siberian Chemical Plant". In Tomsk, where the last plant is located, a zone is infected in a radius of at least 100 kilometers around the city.
Do not forget that radiation pollution has spread far from the territory of the Totsky, Novaya Zemlya and Semipalatinsk test sites for nuclear explosions. It captures the Tomsk, Kemerovo and Novosibirsk regions. In addition, the long-suffering Altai Territory, which is already constantly infected with heptyl, falling onto its land from the falling stages of rockets from Baikonur, was partially under attack. During the period from 1953 to 1961, many explosions were carried out at these training grounds, the consequences of which still make themselves felt.
But this is far from all. This is not customary to talk about, but the West Siberian Plain is located in a zone of rather strong radiation contamination, since many underground nuclear explosions were made within its limits, the consequences of which are felt in the same Nefteyugansk. In Omsk, the central parts of the city are quite heavily polluted with radiation, while its peripheral areas remained practically clean.
Water pollution
Almost the entire territory of the West Siberian Plain, to one degree or another, is contaminated with ammonium and iron salts, phenols and nitrates. Unfortunately, this is not even 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 favorable situation is observed in this regard.
Alas, in other places the MPC (maximum permissible concentration) of oil products in water is exceeded by five, or even 50 (!) Times. This applies especially 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 MPC norms exceeded by 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 environmental disaster, since the norms for the content of oil products in water are exceeded 100 times or more.
These are the environmental problems of the West Siberian Plain. Summarizing briefly, we can say that not everywhere is so bad. The above horrific indicators are more typical for areas near large cities, which ensures the "average temperature in the hospital." Everything could have been much better, but the management of many enterprises is not at all interested in updating the treatment facilities (or even installing them). But water is one of those treasures that the West Siberian Plain is especially rich in! Photos of its majestic rivers are in the article, so you yourself can see for yourself.
Hydrologists say that the most threatening situation has developed on the section Biysk - Novosibirsk, where the Ob is most polluted. Just below the city of Kolpashev, the degree of contamination of the river is also high, but at the confluence, the picture becomes much better. In almost all the smaller rivers in the region, the situation is absolutely identical. However, the same thing is everywhere: the qualitative and quantitative pollution of the aquatic environment sharply decreases in the direction from north to south (in the north, most minerals are mined).
Forest resources
Oddly enough, but the use (according to official figures, of course) of Siberian forest resources is quite modest. The average volume of logging in clearings does not exceed 8%, while on average in the country this figure is 18%, and in some cases more. The lack of planned thinning leads to the fact that the forest begins to age and die.
So, overripe arrays today make up at least 70% of the region. All this gradually leads to the fact that in the territory of Western Siberia the real "forest epidemics" constantly flare up, caused by invasions of wood-borers and other pests. In addition, due to the contamination of the water mirror mentioned above, there are frequent cases of drying out of entire forests.
Another trouble is the fires, which the Russian and West Siberian plains have been “famous for” in recent years. Approximately 65% of unplanned losses of wood are just attributable to them. Do not forget that approximately 25% of the taiga is in the zone of active oil production, which again sharply increases the likelihood of ignition of large areas. It is worth noting 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 losses from fire are negligible (no more than 0.2%). This is how the West Siberian Plain is characterized in a “forest” respect. Photos of the beautiful taiga are available in our article.
