How humanity has changed planet Earth over the past half century

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

The fruits of our labors are clearly demonstrated on the special NASA website Images of change, where photographs taken at intervals of 5, 10, 50, 100 years (primarily satellite) show how it was - and how it became. Melting glaciers, drying up of lakes, erosion of shores, the onset of deserts … However, there was a place in the collection for the few achievements of mankind: from the landscaping of the Libyan desert under Gaddafi to the explosion in 1992 of the Soviet dam that saved the unique Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay.

Mura Glacier (Alaska) in 1882 and 2005

Greening the Wadi al-Sirhan desert, northern Saudi Arabia: February 1986 - February 2004. A huge desert area, where before the inhabitants of two towns (Al-Isawiyya and Tubarzhal - the upper left corner of the picture) could barely make ends meet, has turned into a blooming garden in a couple of decades. Many fields are irrigated with pivot irrigation. Water in As-Sirkhan is taken from an ancient aquifer. The economical and rational use of resources helped to create an agricultural area practically from scratch, and with minimal damage to the environment.

Economy and coastline West Coast of Mexico, 1993 and 2011. Over the past decades, dozens of shrimp farms have opened in the state of Sonora. While the new industry has brought a lot of money and jobs to the region, its impact on the ecosystem is causing concern among scientists.

Echo of Chernobyl The vicinity of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, April 1986 - April 2011. The Soviet-era photo shows fields ready for sowing (bright colors), dense forests (dark green) and small rural settlements (blue, purple). After 25 years, the fields became meadows (bright green), the forests were destroyed (in their place, however, new trees were planted - also shades of green), and all the settlements were abandoned by the inhabitants.

Melting ice in the Matterhorn Peak Alps (on the border between Switzerland and Italy) in August 1960 and 2005.

Global Warming These NASA maps compare the average temperatures in each region of the planet between 1880-1889 and 2000-2009. The data was received from scientific ships, satellites and 6300 meteorological stations. Since 1880, the average temperature at the Earth's surface has risen by 0.7 degrees Celsius, with two-thirds of the increase accounted for in the past 40 years.

Rescue of Kara-Bogaz-Gol Kara-Bogaz-Gol is a bay-lagoon of the Caspian Sea in the west of Turkmenistan in 1972, 1987 and 2010. The largest mirabilite deposit. The construction of a dam that separated Kara-Bogaz-Gol from the Caspian in 1980 led to a drop in water levels and the formation of a "salt pot" that polluted the soil with salt and caused lung diseases. In 1992, the dam was blown up, and the ecosystem of the bay gradually began to recover.

Air purification Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is a brown gas that causes lung diseases and actively participates in the formation of other harmful substances. It enters the atmosphere mainly from the combustion of gasoline in automobile engines and coal in power plants. Thanks to new laws, technological progress and shifts in the US economy, the concentration of NO2 in the atmosphere has been steadily decreasing over the past decades (despite the growth in population and the number of cars). The picture shows the north of the United States (Boston-Richmond axis), which once had the highest levels of NO2.

Artificial Islands In 2001, in the city of Dubai, located on the coast of the Persian Gulf, work began on the creation of an artificial archipelago. By 2012, three palm-shaped islands had already emerged: Palm Jumeirah, Palm Jebel Ali, Palm Deira - as well as the "Peace" and "Universe" archipelagos of small islands.

Goodbye Ice Kilimanjaro! Kilimanjaro - the highest mountain peak in Africa - in February 1993 and 2000. The picture shows how much its ice cap has "shrunk".

Deforestation of Baban Rafi Forest (Niger, Maradi region) in 1976 and 2007. Situated on the southern edge of the Sahel, Baban Rafi is characterized by mixed vegetation (typical of savannas and semi-deserts). The pictures show how the natural landscape (dark green tones) is giving way to agriculture. For 40 years, the population of the region has grown 40 times, and with it the need for land for fields. The remains of the forest are actively cut down for firewood.

Saddam and Kuwait Oil Fields Sabriya Field in 1991 and 2011. Before retreating from Kuwait in 1991, Iraqi troops, on the orders of Saddam Hussein, set fire to about 700 oil wells. Combustion products have painted kilometers of soil black (as you can see in the first picture). However, over 20 years, the ecosystem of the region as a whole has recovered from the damage. The puffs of smoke in the second image are a trail of routine arson procedures (with their help, excess gases are removed).

Pedersen Glacier (Alaska) in 1917 and 2005

Gold mining in California The Mesquite gold mine - one of the largest in the United States - in 1982, 1987 and 2011. The precious metal began to be mined here in 1957, and production expanded in 1986 (when gold prices on world exchanges went up). According to geologists' forecasts, the reserves of the metal should have been exhausted by 1999, however, improved technologies are supporting the extraction. Located in Mesquite in the Mojave Desert. The impact of toxic waste (primarily cyanide) is carefully monitored by environmentalists. The owners of the mine are now planning to build a large industrial waste landfill nearby.

Drying up of lakes in Lake Chad (Africa) December 1972, 1987, 2002. Persistent droughts have reduced the sixth largest lake in the world to one-twentieth of its area in the 1960s. As the lake recedes, vast swamps are formed along its shores.

Dam The Mirani Dam on the Dasht River (Pakistan) was built in 2006. The new reservoir provides water for drinking, irrigation of fields and the operation of hydroelectric power plants. However, due to excess rainfall in 2007 in the surrounding areas, 15 thousand people became victims of flooding. In the pictures: Dasht before (1999) and after (2011) the construction of the dam (abundance of greenery - new gardens and fields).

Great man-made river Southeast Libya, 1987 and 2010. The discovery in the middle of the century of aquifers beneath the surface of Libya's southern deserts led to the launch of the Great Man-Made River, one of the world's greatest engineering projects: pipelines, aqueducts and boreholes (over 500 meters deep). A complex network of aqueducts supplies the desert areas with water.