Water resources are resources. Stocks of water resources. Main types and sources of pollution of world waters

organisms and oxygen dissolved in water. However, fresh water is becoming a major scarcity on the planet.
The swamps contain 4 times more water than the world's rivers; 95% of swamp water is located in peat layers.
The atmosphere contains water mainly in the form of water vapour. Its main mass (90%) is concentrated in the lower layers of the atmosphere, up to a height of 10 km.
Fresh water is unevenly distributed over the Earth. The problem of supplying the population with drinking water is very acute and has become more and more acute in recent years. About 60% of the Earth's surface are zones where fresh water is either absent, or there is an acute shortage of it, or it is of poor quality. Approximately half of humanity is experiencing a shortage of drinking water.
Fresh surface waters (rivers, lakes, swamps, soil and ground waters) are the most heavily polluted. Most often, sources of pollution are insufficiently treated or not at all treated discharges from industrial facilities (including hazardous ones), discharges from large cities, and runoff from landfills.
Pollution environment in the Volga basin is 3-5 times higher than the national average. Not a single city on the Volga is provided
quality drinking water. There are many environmentally hazardous industries and enterprises without treatment facilities in the basin.
The operational reserves of explored groundwater deposits in Russia are estimated at about 30 km / year. The degree of development of these reserves is currently on average just over 30%.

The most important component of Russia's water resources is rivers. The center of the state territory of Russia was determined by the upper reaches of the rivers, the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe territory. - by their mouths, resettlement - by the direction of river basins. Rivers have influenced our history in many ways. On the river, the Russian man came to life. During the resettlement, the river showed him the way. During a significant part of the year she fed. For a merchant, it is a summer and winter road.

The Dnieper and Volkhov, Klyazma, Oka, Volga, Neva, and many other rivers entered the history of Russia as places of the most important events in the life of the country. It is no coincidence that rivers occupy a prominent place in the Russian epic.

On geographical map Russia draws attention to an extensive river network.
There are 120,000 rivers in Russia over 10 km long, including more than 3,000 medium (200-500 km) and large (more than 500 km) rivers. The annual river runoff is 4270 km3 (including 630 km3 in the Yenisei basin, 532 in the Lena, 404 in the Ob, 344 in the Amur, and 254 in the Volga River). Generic river runoff is taken as the initial value when assessing the country's water supply.

Reservoirs have been created on many rivers, some of which are larger than large lakes.

Russia's huge hydropower resources (320 million kW) are also unevenly distributed. More than 80% of the hydropower potential is located in the Asian part of the country.

In addition to the function of water storage for the operation of hydroelectric power stations, reservoirs are used for watering land, water supply for the population and industrial enterprises, shipping, timber rafting, flood control, and recreation. Large reservoirs are changing natural conditions: regulate the flow of rivers, influence the climate, the conditions for spawning fish, etc.

Russian lakes, of which there are more than 2 million, contain more than half of all fresh water countries. At the same time, about 95% of lake water in Russia is in Baikal. There are relatively few large lakes in the country, only 9 of them (excluding the Caspian) have an area of ​​\u200b\u200bmore than 1 thousand km2 - Baikal, Ladoga, Onega, Taimyr, Khanka, Chudsko-Pskovskoye, Chany, Ilmen, Beloe. Navigation is established on large lakes, their water is used for water supply and irrigation. Some of the lakes are rich in fish, have reserves of salts, healing mud, and are used for recreation.

Bogs are common on plains in zones of excessive moisture and permafrost. In the tundra zone, for example, the swampiness of the territory reaches 50%. Severe waterlogging is characteristic of the taiga. The swamps of the forest zone are rich in peat. The best quality peat - low-ash and high-calorie - is given by raised bogs located on watersheds. Wetlands are the source of food for many rivers and lakes. The most swampy region of the world is Western Siberia. Here, swamps occupy almost 3 million km2, they contain more than 1/4 of the world's peat reserves.

Groundwater is of great economic importance. It is an important source of food for rivers, lakes and swamps. Groundwater of the first aquifer from the surface is called groundwater. The processes of soil formation and the associated development of vegetation cover depend on the depth of occurrence, abundance and quality of groundwater. When moving from north to south, the depth of groundwater increases, their temperature rises, and mineralization increases.

The groundwater- a source of clean water. They are much better protected from pollution than surface waters. Increasing the content of a row chemical elements and compounds in groundwater leads to the formation of mineral waters. About 300 springs are known in Russia, 3/4 of which are located in the European part of the country ( Mineral water, Sochi, North Ossetia, Pskov region, Udmurtia, etc.).

Almost 1/4 of Russia's fresh water reserves is located in glaciers occupying about 60 thousand km2. These are mainly cover glaciers of the Arctic islands (55.5 thousand km2, water reserves 16.3 thousand km3).

Large areas in our country are occupied by permafrost - rock strata containing ice that does not thaw for a long time - about 11 million km2. These are the territories east of the Yenisei, the north of the East European Plain and the West Siberian Lowland. The maximum thickness of permafrost in the north of Central Siberia and in the lowlands of the basins of the Yana, Indigirka and Kolyma rivers. Permafrost has a significant impact on economic life. The shallow occurrence of the frozen layer impairs the formation of the root system of plants, reduces the productivity of meadows and forests. The laying of roads, the construction of buildings change the thermal regime of the permafrost and can lead to subsidence, sinking, swelling of soils, distortions of buildings, etc.

The territory of Russia is washed by the waters of 12 seas: 3 sea pools Atlantic Ocean, 6 seas of the Arctic Ocean, 3 seas Pacific Ocean.

The Atlantic Ocean approaches the territory of Russia with its inland seas - the Baltic, Black and Azov. They are very desalinated and quite warm. These are important transport routes from Russia to Western Europe and other parts of the world. A significant part of the coast of these seas is a recreational zone. Fishery value is small.

The seas of the Arctic Ocean, as it were, "lean" on the Arctic coast of Russia over a vast area - 10 thousand km. They are shallow and covered with ice for most of the year (except for the southwestern part of the Barents Sea). The main transport routes pass through the White and Barents Seas. Importance has the Northern Sea Route.

Offshore oil and gas fields are promising. The Barents Sea is of the greatest commercial importance.

Seas of the Pacific Ocean- the largest and deepest of those washing Russia. The southernmost of them, Japan, is the richest in biological resources and is widely used for international shipping.

As water resources, surface runoff (rivers, lakes and other water bodies), groundwater runoff (groundwater and groundwater), glacier waters, atmospheric precipitation are considered, which are sources of water to meet economic and domestic needs. Water is a kind of resource. It combines the nature of both exhaustible (groundwater) and inexhaustible (surface runoff) reserves. Water in nature is in constant motion, so its distribution over the territory, seasons and years is subject to significant fluctuations.

Russia has significant reserves of fresh water. River waters are used most widely in the national economy. The rivers of Russia belong to the basins of three oceans, as well as to the inland Caspian basin, which occupies most of the European part of Russia. Most of the Russian rivers belong to the Arctic Ocean basin. The rivers flowing into the northern seas are the longest and deepest. Most long river- Lena (4400 km), the most full-flowing river - the Yenisei. IN southern parts the rivers of Siberia are swift and rapids. The largest hydropower plants in the country were built on these sections - Krasnoyarskaya and Sayano-Shushenskaya on the Yenisei, Novosibirskskaya on the Ob, Irkutskaya, Bratskaya, Ust-Ilimskaya on the Angara, etc. The rivers of the European part of the Arctic Ocean basin - Pechora, Mezen, Northern Dvina, Onega - are much shorter than the Siberian rivers. Many rivers belong to the Pacific Ocean basin. The main rivers of this basin are the Amur and its tributaries, the Zeya, Bureya, and Ussuri.

The Atlantic Ocean basin occupies the smallest area of ​​the entire territory of the country. The rivers flow west into the Baltic Sea (Neva) and south into the Sea of ​​Azov and the Black Sea (Don, Kuban, etc.). The Neva occupies a special place. This short river (74 km) carries a huge amount of water - four times more than the Dnieper, which has a length of over 2000 km.

Most European Russia occupies the inland basin of the Caspian Sea. The Volga, Ural, Terek and other rivers flow into the Caspian. In European Russia, the longest river is the Volga (3530 km). There are many hydroelectric power stations on the Volga: Volzhskaya im. Lenin, Saratov, Volga them. XXI Congress of the CPSU, etc.

The main consumers of water resources in our country are water supply, hydropower, artificial irrigation.

Water supply is a set of different ways of using water resources by industry, public utilities and the population with a large share of irretrievable losses and varying degrees of pollution. It is this side of water use that creates the problem of quality deterioration and reduction of water reserves, which becomes more and more aggravated with the growth of production. Its solution requires the redistribution of water resources between regions, the careful use of reserves, the construction of treatment facilities, the widespread use of closed cycles of water use, etc.

Hydropower uses the energy of flowing waters, the reserves of which are then completely returned to the watercourse. Russia has the world's largest hydropower reserves, which account for about 1/10 of the world's reserves. Russia's hydropower resources are unevenly distributed. Most of them are in Siberia and Far East, and the main reserves of hydropower are concentrated in the basins of the rivers Yenisei, Lena, Ob, Angara, Irtysh and Amur. In terms of hydropower reserves, the Lena ranks first among the rivers of Russia. The rivers of the North Caucasus are rich in hydropower resources. A significant part of the country's technically possible hydropower resources are in the Volga and Central regions of Russia, where the reserves of hydropower in the Volga basin are especially large.

For artificial irrigation, river runoff and glacier resources are used. The main irrigation areas are arid areas: North Caucasus, Zavolzhye.

within any territory.

The term "resources" comes from the French. resource "auxiliary tool". Water resources are an important part of natural resources in general.

Natural (natural) resources are components of the environment used in the process of social production and to meet the material and cultural needs of society.

The main types of natural resources are solar energy, wind energy, sea tide energy, intraterrestrial heat, land resources, water, mineral (including fuel and energy), plant (including forest), animal world resources, for example, fish. Natural resources are also divided into renewable and non-renewable.

Renewable natural resources are those natural resources that are renewed in the process of constant circulation of matter and energy on the globe or as a result of their natural reproduction.

The main natural resources of water bodies (including rivers) are water resources, i.e. water itself with its consumer properties. Of the other natural resources of rivers, the most valuable are fish, mineral (oil and gas in the underlying rocks, gravel and sand material in bottom sediments), as well as balneological and recreational ones.

Water resources in a broad sense are all the natural waters of the Earth, represented by the waters of rivers, lakes, reservoirs, swamps, glaciers, aquifers, oceans and seas.

Water resources in the narrow sense are natural waters that are currently used by humans and can be used in the foreseeable future (definition). A similar wording is given in the Water Code of the Russian Federation: “water resources are surface and groundwater that are in water bodies and are used or can be used.” In this interpretation, water resources are not only a natural category, but also a socio-historical one (definition by S.L. Vendrov).

The most valuable water resources are fresh water reserves (this is the narrowest concept of water resources). Fresh water resources are made up of the so-called static (or secular) water reserves and from continuously renewable water resources, i.e. river flow.

Static (secular) fresh water reserves are represented by a part of the water volumes of lakes, glaciers, and groundwater that is not subject to noticeable annual changes. These reserves are measured in volume units (m 3 or km 3).

Renewable water resources – these are the waters that are annually restored in the process of the water cycle on the globe (global hydrological cycle). This type of water resources is measured in units of flow (m 3 / s, m 3 / year, km 3 / year).

River runoff is indeed an annually renewable natural resource that can (up to certain limits, of course) be withdrawn for economic use. In contrast, static (secular) water reserves in lakes, glaciers, and aquifers cannot be withdrawn for economic needs without causing damage to either the water body in question or the rivers associated with it.

Features of water resources

Fresh water resources, including the water resources of rivers, have the following significant differences from other natural resources.

Fresh water as a substance has unique properties and, as a rule, it cannot be replaced by anything. Many other natural resources are substitutable, and with the development of civilization and the technical capabilities of human society, such a substitution began to be used more and more widely. With water, the situation is much worse. Virtually nothing can replace drinking water for both humans and animals. Nothing can replace water when irrigating lands, for plant nutrition (plant capillaries by nature itself are “designed” only for water), as a mass coolant, in many industries, etc.

Water is an indestructible resource. Unlike the previous feature, this one turns out to be quite favorable. In use mineral, for example, when burning wood, coal, oil, gas, these substances, turning into heat and giving ash or gaseous waste, disappear. Water, however, does not disappear during its use, but only passes from one state to another (liquid water, for example, turns into water vapor) or moves in space - from one place to another. When heated and even when boiling, water does not decompose into hydrogen and oxygen. One of the few cases of the actual disappearance of water as a substance is the binding of water together with carbon dioxide (dioxide) (carbon dioxide) in the process of photosynthesis and the formation of organic matter. However, the volumes of water used for synthesis organic matter, are small, as well as, however, small losses of water leaving the Earth into outer space. It is also believed that these losses are fully compensated by the formation of water during the degassing of the Earth's mantle (about 1 km 3 of water per year) and when water enters from space along with ice meteorites.

The term "irreversible water consumption" used in the water industry should be understood as follows. For a specific section of a river (perhaps even for the entire river basin), lake or reservoir, water intake for household needs (land irrigation, water supply, etc.) can indeed become irrevocable. The withdrawn water partially evaporates later from the surface of irrigated lands or in the process industrial production. However, according to the law of conservation of matter, the same volume of water must fall in the form of precipitation in other regions of the planet. For example, a significant water withdrawal in the basins of the Amudarya and Syrdarya rivers, which led to the depletion of the flow of these rivers and the drying up of the Aral Sea, is inevitably accompanied by an increase in precipitation in the vast mountainous expanses of Central Asia. Only the consequences of the first process - a decrease in the flow of the mentioned rivers - are clearly visible, and an increase in the flow of rivers over a vast territory is almost impossible to notice. Thus, "irrecoverable" water losses refer only to a limited area, but in general, for the continent, and even more so for the entire planet, there can be no irretrievable waste of water. If water in the process of use would disappear without a trace (like coal or oil when burned), then there could be no question of any development of the biosphere and humanity on the globe.

Fresh water is a renewable natural resource. This restoration of water resources is carried out in the process of continuous water cycle on the globe. The renewal of water resources in the process of the water cycle, both in time and in space, occurs unevenly. This is determined both by the change in meteorological conditions (precipitation, evaporation) over time, for example, by the seasons of the year, and by spatial heterogeneity climatic conditions, in particular, latitudinal and altitudinal zonality. Therefore, water resources are subject to a large spatio-temporal variability on the planet. This feature often creates a shortage of water resources in some areas of the globe (for example, in arid regions, in places with high economic water consumption), especially during a dry period of the year. This forces people to artificially redistribute water resources in time, regulating river flow, and in space, transferring water from one area to another.

Water is a multipurpose resource. Water resources are used to meet a variety of human economic needs. Often, water from the same water body is used by different sectors of the economy.

Water is moving. This difference between water resources and other natural resources has a number of significant implications. First, water can naturally move in space - along earth's surface and in the thickness of the soil, as well as in the atmosphere. In this case, water can change its state of aggregation, passing, for example, from a liquid to a gaseous state (water vapor) and vice versa. The movement of water on Earth creates the water cycle in nature. Secondly, water can be transported (via canals, pipelines) from one region to another. Thirdly, water resources “do not recognize” administrative, including state borders. It may even create complex interstate problems. They can arise when using the water resources of border rivers and rivers flowing through several states (with the so-called transboundary water transfer). Fourth, being mobile and participating in the global cycle, water carries sediment, dissolved substances, including pollutants, heat. And although there is no complete circulation of sediments, salts and heat on Earth (their one-way transfer from land to the ocean prevails), the role of rivers in the transfer of matter and energy is very large. On the one hand, pollutants that have entered the water, such as oil as a result of imperfect technology for its production and transportation, a breakthrough in an oil pipeline or a tanker accident, can be transported over long distances together with river water. This undoubtedly contributes to the spread of pollutants in space, pollution of adjacent waters and coasts. But, on the other hand, flowing water removes harmful substances from the area of ​​pollution, cleansing it, and contributes to the dispersion and decomposition of harmful impurities. In addition, flowing waters are characterized by the ability to "self-purify".

Water resources of the rivers of the world (as of 2008)

The modern renewable water resources of the world's rivers were assessed (GGI) in 2008.

The total water resources of all the world's rivers, according to the SGI, are about 42.8 thousand km 3 /year. The water flow in the amount of 39.5 thousand km 3 / year enters the World Ocean with rivers. The difference of 3.3 thousand km 3 is explained by the following: 1) the flow of rivers flowing in drainless regions of the globe does not enter the World Ocean (according to some estimates, the value of this flow is about 1 thousand km 3 / year); 2) the water resources of river basins, estimated in the zone of their formation, in some cases significantly exceed the amount of runoff in the mouths of the rivers due to the loss of runoff in the lower reaches of the rivers for natural evaporation and the cost of water withdrawal (mainly for land irrigation). A significant reduction in water flow in the transit zone is typical, for example, for the lower reaches of the Nile, Indus, Huang He.

The water resources of rivers are unevenly distributed over the surface of the globe. . Asia (about 32% of the flow of all the planet's rivers) and South America (28%) have the largest runoff, Europe (about 7%) and Australia with Oceania (about 6%) have the smallest.

Important characteristics of the provision of river water to various regions and regions of the globe are the specific water supply of the territory, i.e. the value of river water resources, expressed either in mm of the runoff layer per year, or in thousand m 3 / year per 1 km 2, and the specific water supply population, expressed in thousand m 3 / year per 1 inhabitant. The water supply of the territory is the highest in South America and the smallest in Africa. To the greatest extent, the population is provided with river water in South America and on the islands of Oceania, to the smallest extent - the population of Europe and Asia (73% of the world's population and only 38% of annually renewed river waters are concentrated here).

The water supply of both the territory and the population varies significantly within certain parts of the world, depending on climatic conditions and the distribution of the population. For example, in Asia there are regions both well supplied with water (Eastern Siberia, the Far East) and those that feel its lack ( middle Asia, Kazakhstan, Gobi Desert, etc.).

In Europe, the Volga, Danube, Pechora rivers have the largest water flow. The European part of Russia (913 km 3 /year), Norway (357 km 3 /year), as well as France, Italy, and Sweden have the largest river water resources. The specific water supply of the territory (in mm layer) is the highest in Norway and the European part of Russia, the highest water supply for the population is in Norway, Sweden, and Austria.

In Asia, the most water-bearing rivers are the Ganges with the Brahmaputra, the Yangtze, the Yenisei, the Lena, the Mekong, the Ob, the Amur. The Asian part of Russia (3409 km 3 / year), China (2700 km 3 / year), Indonesia (2080 km 3 / year), India (2037 km 3 / year), Bangladesh (1390 km 3 / year) have the largest river water resources. ). The water supply of the territory is the highest in Bangladesh, Malaysia, Japan, the population - in Malaysia, Tajikistan, Indonesia.

The most water-bearing rivers in Africa are the Congo, Niger, Nile. The largest water resources on this continent are Zaire (1302 km 3 / year), Nigeria (319 km 3 / year), Cameroon (219 km 3 / year), Mozambique (184 km 3 / year). The territories most provided with river water are in Zaire, Nigeria, Cameroon, the population - in Zaire, Cameroon, Angola.

The most water-bearing rivers North America- Mississippi, Mackenzie, St. Lawrence. The river basins in Canada (3420 km 3 /year), the USA (3048 km 3 /year) have the largest water resources. The highest water availability of the territory is in Costa Rica, Honduras, and the population is in Canada and Costa Rica.

In South America, the most water-bearing rivers are the Amazon, Orinoco, Parana and Uruguay. Brazil (8120 km 3 / year), Venezuela (1807 km 3 / year), Colombia (1200 km 3 / year) have the largest water resources on this continent. The water supply of the territory is the highest in Chile, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, the population - in Venezuela, Paraguay, Brazil.

The most water-bearing river in Australia and Oceania is the Murray (Mari). The river water resources of the state of Australia is 352 km 3 / year.

Thus, Brazil (8,120 km 3 /year), Russia (4,322 km 3 /year), Canada (3,420 km 3 /year), USA (3,048 km 3 /year), China are the richest in renewable river water resources. (2,700 km 3 / year).

According to the estimates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-IPCC) in the XXI century. changes are expected in the amount and distribution of water resources on the globe. Water resources will increase in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, South-East Asia, decrease in Central Asia, South Africa, Australia. One of the important conclusions of the IPCC report (IPCC-2007) is the following: climate change will lead in the 21st century to a significant reduction in available water resources in those areas of the planet where there is already a lack of them. The problem of fresh water shortage will worsen in many areas with scarce water resources. The demand for water will increase as the population grows and countries develop economically.

Water resources of Russia (for 2014)

In 2014, renewable water resources of Russian river basins, according to the State Report on the State and Use of Water Resources Russian Federation, made up. Most of this volume was formed within Russia (95.71% or 4424.7 km 3), and the smaller part came from the territories of neighboring states (4.29% or 198.3 km 3). One inhabitant of the country accounted for 30.25 thousand m 3 of river water per year.

V.N. Mikhailov, M.V. Mikhailova

The water resources of the planet are united by a single term hydrosphere (from the Greek hydor - water and sphair - ball), which is one of the four main and interconnected shells of our planet: the lithosphere (earth's crust), the atmosphere (gas medium) and the biosphere (all life on the planet ). The hydrosphere includes all hydraulically interconnected waters that are in liquid and solid states both on the surface of the planet and in the earth's crust - the waters of the oceans, seas, lakes and groundwater of the land.

The origin of water on Earth is as obscure as the origin of our planet itself. In the scientific community there are supporters of the "cold" (meteorite) and "hot" (molten substance) origin of the Earth. The former are of the opinion that water in the form of ice or a snow-like mass was part of the meteorite that became the great-great-grandfather of our planet. The second argue that water was released from the heated deep matter (magma) of the Earth in the process of its cooling and rejection (crystallization).

Water is the second most important substance after air, without which no one and nothing on Earth could neither appear nor exist. We are already accustomed to the fact that the formula for water is quite simple (H 2 0), but to prove complex composition water in the experiment was first destined to two outstanding Frenchmen - the chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) and the mathematician and physicist Pierre Simon Laplace (1749-1827).

Plumbing supports in a case

Water is the most mysterious and unique natural substance, capable, for example, of flowing up the microcracks of rocks and the capillaries of trees. Surprisingly, water is still the least studied substance. It is considered the most incomprehensible of all substances studied by chemists and physicists. Water is an unsurpassed solvent, dissolving almost everything that is on the way, therefore it is easily contaminated.

Water is vital human body, which reacts sharply to violation water balance: when the body loses up to 2% of body weight (1-1.5 l) of water, acute thirst appears, with a loss of 6-8%, a person falls into a semi-conscious state, and with a loss of more than 12% of moisture, death occurs. A person can live without food for more than a month, but without water only a few days.

From necessary for a person under normal conditions, 2.5 liters per day, 1 liter falls on drinking water, 1.2 liters - on incoming food and 0.3 liters - on the water formed in the body itself in the process of metabolism. In higher organisms, the percentage of water content ranges from 60 to 70%. In marine organisms (jellyfish, some types of algae), the water content reaches 98%. In contrast, spore-forming bacteria, which are a hardy, slow-living form, contain only 50% water.

Most of the entire water of the human body is contained inside the cells (71%), about 19% is in the form of non-cellular water and 10% is in the plasma, lymph, cerebrospinal and other fluids. Water is necessary for all living beings, not only as their main component, but also as a favorable environment for the transit of food and the functioning of food chains.

Water is the most common substance on Earth, its total reserves are about 1370 million km 3, however, despite the huge total amount of water on the planet, it is mostly salty. The continuous water shell of the Earth, surrounding the continents and islands, is commonly called the World Ocean. It accounts for about 97.5% of all water reserves of the planet.

The concentration of dissolved in the oceans inorganic substances ranges from a few grams per liter of water in sea bays off the coast to 40-42 g/l in tropical seas, which makes it practically unsuitable for drinking purposes without special expensive treatment.

Fresh water reserves are estimated at only 2.5% of all water on the globe. In connection with the growth of the population on Earth (according to the forecast of 12-15 billion people by the end of the 21st century) and the rapid development of industrial production, considerations that fresh water reserves will remain inexhaustible and can be used without any restrictions have remained in the distant past.

Fresh water is present in glaciers (68.7%), groundwater (30.1%), permafrost (0.8%), and can be in the form of surface and atmospheric water (0.4%). The bulk of fresh water (more than 24 million km 3) is, as it were, conserved in glaciers and snow cover in the Arctic, Antarctica and Greenland. This part of the water reserves, with the current development of science and technology, is not yet accessible to people.

Groundwater (over 10.5 million km 3) is used relatively limitedly, although for many countries with arid climates it is one of the main sources of water supply. Despite the microscopic proportion of rivers and freshwater lakes, whose water reserves are relatively small (95 thousand km 3), they, along with groundwater, are in most cases considered as potential sources of drinking and industrial water.

It is impossible not to note the fact that fresh water reserves are also concentrated in swamps, which occupy vast territories mainly in Western Siberia and the northwestern regions of the European territory of the Russian Federation. The swamps formed after the glaciers melted 10-12 thousand years ago and continue to form, occupying about 1.4 million km 2 of the territory of the Russian Federation and accumulating huge masses of water. According to various estimates, about 3 thousand km 3 of natural water reserves are concentrated in them.

Wetlands play an important role in the formation hydrological regime rivers: they regulate floods and floods, contribute to the natural self-purification of river waters from many atmospheric and anthropogenic pollutants. Swamp water is not used in water supply systems, but, given the scarcity of fresh water, in the long term they will be able to make a certain contribution to the replenishment of water supplies, having undergone appropriate treatment.

Compared to other countries, Russia is rich in natural waters. Almost a quarter of the world's fresh water reserves are concentrated within the borders of our state.

It is customary to evaluate the water resources of any country by two main values: the annual volume of the flow of all rivers and the fresh water reserves in reservoirs and underground sources. Russian rivers carry a tenth of the annual world river runoff, i.e. order

4.4 thousand km 3 of water per year. In terms of river runoff, our country ranks second in the world after Brazil with its numerous rivers, where only the Amazon carries a fifth of the entire fresh water of the globe (more than 6 thousand km 3 per year) into the ocean.

Rubber expansion joints

In terms of water supply per person, Russia ranks third after Brazil and Canada: each Russian has about 30 thousand m 3 of water per year, or 78 m 3 per day. For comparison: there is 6 times less water per inhabitant of Europe. At the same time, the entire population of our country does not even reach 3% of the total number of people living on the globe. Russia's water resources are enough to give water to all mankind. Such water abundance imposes on our state a special responsibility for the conservation of this most important natural resource.

Rivers are the basis of the state water fund. In total, 2.5 million rivers flow through the territory of Russia with a total length of about 8 million km. The main part of the runoff (about 95%) is formed on the territory of our country. The river flow is distributed extremely unevenly. Most of the territory of Russia is a basin of the Arctic Ocean, into which the three largest rivers flow: the Yenisei, the Lena and the Ob. The eastern marginal part of Russia belongs to the Pacific Ocean basin (the Amur, Anadyr, Ussuri rivers).

The rivers of the Atlantic Ocean basin include the Neva and the Western Dvina. The largest rivers in the central part of the country are the Volga, Dnieper, Don, Kuban, which belong to the basins of the Caspian and Black Seas, where 2/3 of the population of Russia lives, and less than 10% of the flow is formed. The way out of the current situation with the uneven distribution of water on the territory of individual regions and the need for water supply to megacities is the flooding of relatively small and medium-sized rivers, carried out using a system of artificial canals and reservoirs. A typical example is the flooding of the Moscow River through the construction of several large reservoirs in the Moscow region: Ivankovsky, Uchinsky, Khimki, Ikshinsky, Klyazminsky, etc., with the help of which the problem of supplying Moscow with high-quality drinking water was solved.

It should be noted that on the territory of Russia there is Lake Baikal, unique in a number of indicators - a pantry of reserves of ecologically impeccable, fresh, amazingly tasty water suitable for consumption without special purification. For comparison, let's clarify that the annual flow of all the world's rivers is only 2 times the volume of Lake Baikal, which contains 23 thousand km 3 of water.