chapter 15, section 3

Human environment interaction

1. The Shrinking Aral Sea
a. A disappearing lake
i. The Aral Sea gets water from two rivers: the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya
ii. In the 1950s, the Russian government took large amounts of the water to irrigate the central Asian cotton fields
iii. The 850-mile Kara Kum canal reduced the flow into the sea to a trickle, making begin to evaporate
b. Effects of agriculture
i. Cotton growers caused environmental problems by using a large amount of pesticides and fertilizers
ii. Some of the chemicals ran into Aral, causing devastation to the life in the water
iii. Of the 24 species of fish, none remain
iv. As the Aral evaporated, it began to expose the fertilizers and pesticides, as well as salt from the water
v. Winds picked up these particles and dumped them on the nearby population
vi. Pollution has caused a severe rise in disease
2. The Russian Winter
a. Coping in Siberia
i. More than 32 million people live in Siberia
ii. Scientists have recorded the world’s largest temperature change in this area from 94 degrees to -90 degrees
iii. The change in weather brings little help
iv. The melted ice pools become breeding ground for mosquitos and black flies
v. The weather makes building things hard
vi. The permafrost makes then ground like metal
b. War and General Winter
i. In the early 1800s, Napoleon Bonaparte decided to try and conquer Russia
ii. The Winter managed to kill off 90,000 troops
iii. Before fleeing Moscow, the Russians decided to burn down the city, so the troops that were invading wouldn’t have places to take shelter.
3. Crossing the Wild East
i. Trans-Siberian Railroad: A railroad that would link Moscow to Vladivostok on the pacific Ocean
b. An enormous project
i. The railroad crossed 5,000+ miles of land
ii. Between 1891 and 1903 70,000 workers moved 77 million cubic feet of earth and cleared 100,000 acres of forest
c. Resource wealth in Siberia
i. The building of the railroad not only sped up travel, but helped to extract resources from the area
ii. in 1914, five million settlers, mostly farmers, settled Siberia
iii. Coal, oil, and iron ore came in huge amounts from the area
4. Summary
a. This section went over the effects humans have had on Russia and the republics. It talked about the goods and bads of modernization. It told of “general winter” and how that affects human settlement. It also taught about the trans-siberian railroad, and how that has helped Russian progress.