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Environment, economy and community of the upper Angara and middle Yenisei regions: impact of climate change and water reservoir cascades built on the Angara and Yenisei rivers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2013

Sergei Gorshkov
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Moscow State University, 1 Leninskie gory, GSP 1, 119991, Moscow, Russia ([email protected])
Larisa Evseeva
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Moscow State University, 1 Leninskie gory, GSP 1, 119991, Moscow, Russia ([email protected])
Olga Mochalova
Affiliation:
Environmental Initiatives Center, 4/1 Dmytrovskyi Lane, 107031, Moscow, Russia
Laurent Touchart
Affiliation:
Department of Arts, Languages and Humanities, University of Orleans, 10 rue de Tours BP 46527, 45 065 Orléans Cedex 2, France
Jean-Louis Ballais
Affiliation:
CEGA-UMR 7300 ESPACE, CNRS – University of Aix-Marseille, 29 avenue Robert Schuman, 13621 Aix-en-Provence cedex 1, France
Yves Simone
Affiliation:
Laboratoire Protée EA 3819, University of Sud Toulon-Var, BP 20132, 83957 LA GARDE Cedex, France

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the aggravation of negative natural and anthropogenous changes in Central Siberia in the Yenisei River geo-system. These changes are probably the result of global warming and climate destabilisation combined with intensified destructive processes in the region.

The last decades were characterised by the following:

  1. 1. Growth of mean annual temperatures and change of annual climate structure resulting in extreme weather and hydrologic situations;

  2. 2. Large-scale degradation of insular permafrost with corresponding decrease of their water-cut;

  3. 3. Dry thunderstorms, fires, forest disease outbreaks became more frequent and abundant in the large areas;

  4. 4. Forage resources failures and game animals’ depletion in numbers became more frequent;

  5. 5. Overgrowing of the Angara and the Yenisei Rivers. Significant drop of spawning sites’ reproductive functions;

  6. 6. Northern borders of some wild populations’ habitats started moving further north;

  7. 7. Aggravation of boat traffic conditions and traditional use of natural resources;

  8. 8. Taiga lost its fire-suppression and chemical-protection functions almost completely;

  9. 9. Some issues have emerged regarding protection of people and domestic animals against natural-endemic diseases as well as predators;

There are good reasons to believe that these processes display an unprecedented environmental crisis of the regional biosphere.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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