Amur River: in danger of death

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:45

Most Russians are familiar with the Amur River only from the old song: “On the high banks of the Amur, sentries of the Motherland stand!” Yes, and mostly older people. At best, young people have heard that somewhere far away, either in Siberia, or it is not clear where, there seems to be such a river. Meanwhile, the Amur River is one of the largest water arteries not only in Russia, but also in the world.

The area of the Amur basin, for example, is 1855 thousand square kilometers. This is the fourth place in Russia and the tenth in the world. Fifty-four percent of the basin area is located in Russia. Many other rivers, whose names are much more "hyped", have a much smaller catchment area. The length of the river is almost three thousand kilometers. The greatest width is five kilometers, and the depth is fifty-six meters!

The power sources of the Amur River are filled with water mainly during monsoon rains. Melt water in the balance of the Amur isonly twenty-five percent of the runoff. Due to the peculiarities of the hydrobalance, the Amur River has two maximums - summer and autumn. During the summer, the river rises by three to four meters, and in autumn it is much more - up to fifteen meters. At this time, the Amur River can overflow up to twenty kilometers!

Cupid is a habitat for valuable commercial fish. There is a large number of fish both salmon species - pink salmon, chum, and sturgeon - kaluga and sea sturgeon. And not just a lot of fish, but a lot, as in any Far Eastern or northern river.

But in recent years, a problem has arisen that can significantly reduce the number of fish, and even cause considerable harm to humans. We are talking about the violation of the ecological balance in the Amur basin. The environmental problems of the Amur River have already become the reason for close attention to it by ecologists from three countries located in its basin - Russia, China and Mongolia.

The problem became especially acute in the nineties, when in Russia, for obvious reasons, environmental control controlled almost nothing, and rapidly developing China was not up to the problems of the northern river. But common sense, fortunately, still prevailed. If in the late nineties, even the meat of Amur fish, due to the high content of harmful substances, had a kind of “pharmacy” smell, then after six to seven years the situation improved. And although the Chinese industry is still developing rapidly, the discharge of harmful substances into the river has stopped. Environmentalists are now more concerned about activitiesagricultural enterprises of our southern neighbor.

Chinese in pursuit of productivity use a large number of chemicals, including those that are prohibited for import and use in Russia. Fertilizers are washed from the fields into the Amur by spring and flood waters. But the river is a common one!

Despite some improvement in the situation, the Amur River continues to be a headache for environmentalists and residents of the Far East region. Everyone remembers the case when, in 2005, due to an accident at a Chinese chemical plant, a large amount of nitrobenzene and nitrobenzine was washed into the river. A giant poisonous spot moved down the Songhua River - one of the tributaries of the Amur. A few days later, the spot reached the Amur, and a month later, Khabarovsk. And in the summer of 2008, local residents discovered an oil slick on the Amur. Its origin could not be established.