Why the Volga and other major Russian rivers are shallow

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In May, the media circulated photographs: the Volga in the Kazan region became so shallow that an ancient pavement was exposed - to the delight of archaeologists, tourists and black diggers. But in fact, there is nothing to rejoice at - not only the Volga, but also other large rivers of Russia are gradually becoming shallow. And that could be a disaster. By the way, the first to notice the frightening shallowing of the Volga was not scientists, but ordinary people.

Reel in your fishing rods

Social media users from different regions of Russia actively shared photos of the exposed banks of the great Russian river. Such a fate overtook some of the small rivers flowing into the Volga. The retreat of water from the shores was strongest in Tatarstan, Ulyanovsk, Astrakhan, Kostroma, Saratov, Tver and Samara regions. Thus, residents of Togliatti found that on the beaches near the city the water receded from the usual border by 500 m. And in the Rybinsk area of the Yaroslavl region. islets formed right in the middle of the river. The country was bypassed by footage of the Kuibyshev "sea" that has turned into a chain of puddles near Kazan, and dry cargo ships that have run aground in the Saratov region.

Local residents make forecasts, one is more pessimistic than the other. Togliatti resident Roman Vileev (surname has been changed. - Ed.) For 20 years he has been fond of fishing. But this year he decided not to get the tackle: he thinks that it’s not the right time. “The Kuibyshev reservoir - the largest in Europe and the third largest in the world - has shallowed to a critical minimum. Even in the drought of 2010, this was not the case,”explains the fisherman.

His fears that due to the shallowing of the Volga with fishing it will soon be possible to say goodbye altogether, scientists confirm. Spring and early summer are the time when fish spawn. There are 70 species of it in the Volga, and the lack of water is likely to affect the decline in the population. “The low water level in the Volga, of course, should be considered as an ecological disaster,” says Igor Sinitsyn, Ph. D. in Pedagogy, teacher of geography and biology, from Yaroslavl. - For spawning in spring, fish should go to shallow water and spawn at depths from 0.5 to 1.5 m. This is exactly the depth that was exposed this spring. The fish will not spawn or will do it in unsuitable places, and the eggs will die anyway. This means that water resources will be halved. The shallowing of the Volga had a critical impact on the spawning of pike and partly of the track. In addition, the water in a shallower reservoir will warm up earlier, bloom, and algae take oxygen from the fish. Water quality can also deteriorate. Due to the shallowing, the concentration of harmful substances in it increases."

Tourists were also saddened by the fishermen. “There has never been such a terrifying view on the river before - huge sandy islands in the middle! - Anna Vingurt, an expert in domestic tourism, is surprised at the sight of the Volga in Kazan. - I turned to the wheelhouse with a question: what happened to the river? The navigators replied that the navigation is just beginning and the river is likely to fill up. For tourists, a lot depends on the skill of the captain and the entire ship's crew. Someone managed to go to Bolgar - one of the main tourist attractions of Tatarstan, and someone walked past, fearing to run aground. To moor, motor ships in these parts do not have enough water”.

At the end of May, one motor ship with tourists came to Nizhny Novgorod from Moscow with a delay - they waited a long time for the water near Gorodets during the sluice. And those who bought vouchers for routes up the Volga may have to go by buses near Gorodets, to the Galanino pier, in order to get on the ship already there. This is the situation on the great Russian river!

“Summer residents are anxiously awaiting this summer,” confirms Pyotr Kozlov, chairman of the board of the Volgograd Regional Union of Horticultural and Gardening Non-profit Associations. - A slight flood did not allow sufficient moisture to saturate the subsoil horizons. Already, many wells, wells in our summer cottages beyond the Volga and on the Sarpinsky Island are semi-dry. Imagine what can happen after a few weeks of heat!”.

The eye goes into the sand

It is no better in other regions.

- Oka is getting shallow for several reasons at once, - explains the chairman of the Ryazan branch of the Center for Environmental Policy and Culture, candidate of geographical sciences Violetta Chyornaya. - Firstly, there is an active intake and accumulation of water for household and drinking purposes. First of all, this applies to three reservoirs - Orlovsky, Shchelkovsky and Shatsky. The replenishment from the Klyazma River, which has always been carried out through the channel to them. Moscow. And the water intake is becoming larger, in proportion to the growth of the population in the capital.

In addition, underground water horizons are being depleted - because of this, the river has little underground supply. Climatic conditions also affect. The winters have become less snowy. The period of flooding in the spring is very extended - it lasts for two whole months. We also do not observe a stormy, large-scale flood. Sand is also constantly mined in the Oka floodplain. The result is a quarry into which water begins to leave. And sometimes the sand is washed into the riverbed. Thus, the relief at the bottom of the river changes, therefore, in some areas, the depth decreases.

In the regions of the middle and lower reaches of the Oka, where the Ryazan region falls, the pollution of surface waters is extremely high. There are many reasons for this. A lot of dirt comes from soil and soil. Garbage and pollution come from roads, production sites. In our regional center there is no control system for discharge and flushing, storm water treatment. It can take a long time to list the problems. To remedy the situation with the shallowing of the river, it is necessary to limit the extraction of sand by quarrying. But this would require revoking licenses from mining companies. The introduction of recycled water supply and water-saving technologies in the industry would be a big step. And of course, saving water would help.

Would Chapaev survive?

Those who saw the state of the notorious Urals this spring, in which, according to legend, the famous divisional commander Chapayev drowned, sadly joke: the current Ural Chapay would have swum across. The unprecedentedly hot May and the virtual absence of flooding in the region affected the state of the main waterway of the Orenburg region. Usually from the beginning of April for a couple of weeks it overflows the banks and floods the floodplain. Water floods the village of Kuznechny on the banks of the river, and in order to get to the city, residents set up a boat crossing. The Sheep Town and Sitzovka in Orenburg are traditionally under the blow of the elements. However, this year the Urals did not overflow their shores. Old-timers admit that they do not remember such a meager flood in their lifetime.

“The Ural is a unique river, which is 95% dependent on snow reserves and spring floods, and only 5% on springs,” says the head of the water resources department of the Nizhne-Volzhsky Basin Administration for the Orenburg Region. Sergey Ridel. - The amplitude of its fluctuations is one of the largest in Europe. But there has not been such a spring flood as this year for 50 years. This is due to low autumn moisture and low soil freezing in winter.

The Urals today have two main problems - low water levels and water quality. As for the lack of water, mankind does not have many measures to solve the problem: this is forest reclamation - planting trees in the water protection zone, strengthening the banks, rational use of water by people and enterprises. The Iriklinskoye reservoir helps to save the Urals from drying out.

Evidence from the chronicles has been preserved, in which they say that the Mongol emir Timur crossed the Urals in 1389.during his campaign, and then the water did not rise above the knee. And now the river can be regulated to keep it from dying.

Where did the water go?

In the language of science, this condition is called low water. “This is a dangerous hydrological phenomenon, which is observed more and more often in the European part of Russia,” says Natalya Frolova, head of the Department of Land Hydrology, Faculty of Geography, Moscow State University. - Its consequences are manifested in the economy, and in the environment, and in social life. First, shipping suffers. Secondly, the generation of electricity from hydroelectric power plants located on rivers is decreasing. Thirdly, there are interruptions in water supply to the population and industrial enterprises. In addition, water quality deteriorates water quality, risks to human health arise, crop yields fall, and the likelihood of fires increases."

Average annual air temperatures (especially in winter) are increasing. In winter, the number and duration of thaws increases, the depth of freezing of the soil decreases, due to which the melt water goes into the soil and does not fill the rivers. And a warm, prolonged spring leads to the fact that water evaporates and, instead of entering the reservoirs, enters the atmosphere. Thereby, by the way, further accelerating the process of global warming. After all, water vapor is a greenhouse gas worse than carbon dioxide and methane. Despite the fact that its content in the atmosphere is only 0.2-2.5%, it accounts for more than 60% of the greenhouse effect.

As a result of all these natural phenomena, the water regime of the rivers changes significantly. During floods, water consumption decreases, while in the winter months, on the contrary, increases. This year, in the spring, the maximum water consumption, for example, for the Oka and its tributaries was 20-40% of the usual values.

“The abnormally warm, dry and sunny autumn period of 2018 created conditions, as a result of which, by the beginning of winter, in the basins of the Upper Volga, Oka, Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers, and most of the rivers of European Russia, the soils were dry,” explains Natalya Frolova … - The depth of freezing by the end of winter was small, which led to intensive absorption of melt water. So, by the beginning of March, in a significant part of the Volga basin, the soil was frozen to a depth of no more than 20 cm. This is very little."

Spring months were warm and relatively dry compared to long-term values. The snow melting was prolonged, there were almost no rains, and this determined the nature of the flood.

Prediction error

Scientists in different regions of Russia note that climate changes have already led to significant changes in the water regime of rivers.

According to Karyagin, the flow of water into the Volga is also delayed by dams, of which there are quite a few in the upper reaches of the rivers, and the water collected by them also evaporates into the atmosphere. Reservoirs also contribute to the fact that the bottom of the river is silted up and many springs from which water flows into the Volga disappear.

Actually, the reserves of water in the snow cover this year were around the norm, and somewhere even higher (as in the same Chuvashia). But in addition to natural conditions, another factor played its role in the extremely low flood - the human factor.

“The reason for this situation was a forecast error,” says Corresponding Member. RAS, Professor of the Samara State University of Economics Gennady Rosenberg. - Due to heavy snowfalls, a high flood was expected in the region, but it was not - most of the melt water was absorbed into the dry land. It is necessary to systematically deal with the problems of the Volga."

The colleague is echoed by the acting director of the Institute of Ecology of the Volga Basin of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergei Saksonov. In his opinion, the current lack of water is the result of inaccuracies in the calculations. Every year, at the end of winter and early spring, the Federal Agency for Water Resources prepares terms of reference for discharges for all HPPs. Errors crept into them.

No money, no personnel

The lack of water in rivers threatens to become an annual problem for the European part of Russia. And it's not just the whims of nature and forecasting errors. Natalya Frolova is sure that it is necessary to solve a number of systemic tasks - both priority and long-term ones. It is necessary to invest in the development of monitoring and water balance stations conducting research, create and implement modern forecasting models, and train scientific personnel.

“Previously, the Department of Land Hydrology at Moscow State University (our best educational institution in this area) was graduated by 15–20 hydrologists annually,” recalls Frolova. - They went to work at Roshydromet, water management organizations, institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences. And now we have been allocated only 8 budget places for undergraduate studies. In the magistracy, and even less. Our colleagues at St. Petersburg University have a similar situation. And there are so many young specialists for the entire European part of the country.

Another pressing problem is the lack of real access to modern hydrological information for those scientists who are engaged in forecasting problems. And finally, it is necessary to improve the structure and organization of water management in the country as a whole.

“The problem is not only that a low level of soil freezing was not predicted this year. These are the details. We do not have comprehensive ecological studies of the river along its entire length, - continues the topic of the head of the grant project of the Russian Geographical Society “Expedition“Floating University of the Volga Basin”, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics Stanislav Ermakov (Nizhny Novgorod). - Meanwhile, on the basis of insufficient information, they are trying to make serious decisions. In my opinion, officials do not interact with experts on the most pressing issues of the river's life. All this together leads to a lack of an integrated approach."

Forecasting is a thankless job. But in general, the great Volga River will not dry up tomorrow. Thank God, man cannot yet twist nature into a ram's horn.