Water resources map. Water resources in Russia. Groundwater map

One of the most water-rich countries - has more than 20% of the world's reserves of fresh surface and groundwater. The average long-term resources of the country are 4270 km3/year (10% of the world river runoff), or 30 thousand m3/year (78 m3/day) per inhabitant (second place in the world after). The predicted operational reserves of groundwater are over 360 m3 per year. Having such significant water resources and using no more than 3% of river runoff, Russia in a number of regions is experiencing an acute shortage of water due to their uneven distribution over the territory (8% of resources are in the European part of Russia, where 80% of industry and population are concentrated), and also poor water quality.

In quantitative terms, Russia's water resources are made up of static (secular) and renewable reserves. The former are considered unchanged and constant for a long time; renewable water resources are estimated by the volume of annual river flow.
The territory of Russia is washed by the waters of 13 seas. The total area of the sea area under the jurisdiction of Russia is about 7 million km2. At the same time, 60% of the total river flow enters the marginal seas.

River runoff resources. Of the surface waters in the socio-economic development of the country, priority belongs to river runoff. The volume of local river runoff on the territory of Russia averages 4043 km3/year (second place in the world after), which is 237 thousand m3/year per 1 km2 of territory and 27–28 thousand m3/year per inhabitant. The runoff from adjacent territories is 227 km3/year.

Water reserves in lakes

The water of lakes is classified as static reserves due to slow water exchange. By the nature of interaction with rivers, there are flowing and drainless lakes. The former are predominantly distributed in the humid zone, the latter in the arid zone, where evaporation from the water surface far exceeds the amount of precipitation.

There are more than 2.7 million fresh and salt lakes in Russia. The main part of fresh water resources is concentrated in large lakes: Ladoga, Chudskoye, Pskov and others. In total, the 12 largest lakes contain over 24.3 thousand km3 of fresh water. More than 90% of the lakes are shallow water bodies, the static water reserves of which are estimated at 2.2–2.4 thousand km3, and, thus, the total water reserves in the lakes of Russia reach (excluding the Caspian Sea) 26.5–26, 7 thousand km3. - the largest in area closed brackish, having international status.

Bogs and swampy areas occupy at least 8% of the territory of Russia. Bog massifs are mainly located in the northwest and north of the European part of the country, as well as in the northern regions. Their areas range from a few hectares to tens of square kilometers. The swamps occupy about 1.4 million km2 and accumulate huge. About 3000 km3 of static reserves of natural waters are concentrated in the region. The swamps are fed by runoff from the area and precipitation falling directly onto the wetland. The total average long-term volume of the incoming component is estimated at 1500 km3; about 1000 km3/year is spent on runoff that feeds rivers, lakes, underground (natural resources), and 500 km3/year is spent on evaporation from the water surface and plant transpiration.

The bulk of glaciers and snowfields is concentrated on islands and in mountainous regions. The largest in area are located in the northern and northeastern parts of Siberia. Arctic glaciers occupy an area of approximately 55 thousand km2.

The hydrological role of glaciers is to redistribute the runoff of precipitation within the year and smooth out fluctuations in the annual flow of rivers. For the water management practice of Russia, the glaciers and snowfields of mountainous regions, which determine the water content of mountain rivers, are of particular interest.

Russia has significant hydropower resources. However, their use, especially in flat areas, is often associated with negative environmental consequences: flooding, loss of valuable agricultural land, coasts, damage to, etc.

If you have become the owner of your land on which you intend to build a house, grow various garden and vegetable crops, then you just need to know some information about your personal plot. You should have such knowledge about your land as a map of the distribution of the main types of soil, the thickness of the fertile layer, the depth of soil freezing in your area, data on the prevailing wind rose and much more. All this information will be very useful to you. You will be able to use the resources of the site as efficiently as possible at the lowest cost.

Figure 1. Scheme of groundwater occurrence.

Such information can really save you from many problems. For example, having learned the prevailing wind rose in your area, you can take this factor into account and build buildings in such a way as to protect some of them from the effects of the wind, as a banal example, you can point to the construction of a brick barbecue. This structure is durable, unlike its metal counterpart, so you can’t just transfer it like that. If the dominant winds were not taken into account during construction, then it will constantly smoke the house and yard.

But even more important information is the data showing the level of groundwater in your area.

The Importance of Knowledge

A map of the groundwater level of your area, and even better, even specifically your site, is an extremely important document for any owner of the land. With this knowledge, you can confidently plan the construction of a house or future planting of garden and horticultural crops. Only knowing exactly the depth of groundwater, you can choose the right type and depth of the foundation for the house, because the slightest calculation errors can lead to deformation of the foundation and even destruction of the whole house, which will entail not only material losses, but also a risk to the life of those living in people's house.

Underground water supplies are also important for plants. Too deep aquifers will not be able to nourish the soil and give life to plants, but water too close will not bring joy either. If the roots are in the water for a long time, then they "suffocate" and the plant may die. Trees are especially sensitive to this, the depth of the roots of which is much greater than that of shrubs and garden plants.

Already these 2 factors are quite sufficient to understand how important it is to know the hydrological situation in your area.

Back to index

Groundwater map

Where can I get a map of the location of groundwater in your area and how to find out at what depth the aquifers pass? There are 2 ways to do this. The simplest and most reasonable is to contact the appropriate authority in your city or area. This may be a land management committee, an architectural committee, hydroprospecting, and so on, in different areas there may be different organizations.

But there are situations when there is no such card, or for some reason it does not suit you. In this case, you will have to do the research yourself. To do this, there are many both strictly scientific and folk ways of studying. Using some of them or combining them with each other, you can quickly and accurately determine at what depth they lie in your area.

Here it is worth noting such an important point as the variety of groundwater. The fact is that there are 3 types. Each of them has its own characteristics and requires different efforts for its operation.

Ground water is the moisture that falls with various precipitation and soaks the topsoil. Water from natural reservoirs can also get here. To use this type of water resources, it is enough to build a simple well.
Ground water is a little more difficult to use, as it occurs at great depths and is a water lens located between 2 impervious layers (usually clay). Water enters these underground reservoirs from vast areas and can be measured in cubic kilometers and is usually under high pressure. To use this resource, it is necessary to drill a deep well.
Verkhovodka. This is all the water that has accumulated in the upper soil layer after precipitation. It practically does not accumulate, and its volume is directly dependent on the level of precipitation.

An approximate layout of all 3 types of groundwater can be seen in Fig. one.

Back to index

Technical methods of reconnaissance

The simplest technical intelligence in your case might look like this. If neighbors live near you and they already have wells or wells, then do not be too lazy to visit them and ask them to look at the water level in these devices. The more wells you can check, the more accurate picture of groundwater will appear before you. Look at the terrain, if it is flat, then, most likely, in your area the level of aquifers is at the same depth as that of your neighbors. If the area is replete with elevation changes, then this will make it difficult to accurately analyze the hydrological situation. But in any case, this information will help you at least approximately orient yourself in this matter.

After that, it is worth starting direct exploration of aquifers and conducting several test drillings in the area using a thin drill. If you stumble upon an aquifer at a depth that suits you, then you can complete all the search work and drill a full-fledged well. And if you can’t find it, then you need to drill a few more wells in other places.

Before starting work, it is very important to take into account the features of the relief of your site. For example, on a flat surface it is easier to find water at the same level as the neighbors. While in the lowlands, groundwater, as a rule, comes closer to the surface of the earth than on the hills. And if there is a ravine or stream in the neighborhood or on the site itself, then the well can only be dug on its slope, since there will be no water in other places, it has already found a way out and does not accumulate in thick layers.

As you can see, care is needed even in the technical search for aquifers. But a trained eye is especially important when searching for water using folk methods.

Back to index

Folk omens

It is possible, using modern technology, to drill several wells in the area and thus quickly find out if there is water and at what depth it is. But it is not always possible to use a drilling rig, and even if it is available, you can significantly save time and resources by conducting a preliminary study of the site using folk methods. It is they who will help to reduce to a minimum the places where the aquifer can lie close. So let's take a look at them.

The groundwater level significantly affects the vegetation. If it comes close enough, then this can be noted both by the state of the plants themselves and by their species diversity. This is especially noticeable in the dry period, when such an island of fresh greenery resembles an oasis in its freshness and brightness. If there is enough moisture for plants, then they have a more saturated color and grow thicker. They love such places: sedge, reeds, horsetails, sorrel, coltsfoot and some other plants. If you have a place on your site where such plants prefer to grow and they have a juicy and bright color, then you can be sure that the water is close.

Observation will help to find such a place in other ways. For example, in the summer, at twilight, in a humid place, you can notice a slight foggy haze when the moisture from the air settles in a cooler place. So, here, too, the water is close to the surface.

You can look at the behavior of animals, they can also tell you where to look for water. For example, it is well known that a cat prefers to rest where it is cool and humid. She will choose such a place on earth. While the dog, on the contrary, will avoid such a place.

By carefully observing the behavior of your pets, you can learn a lot about your site. Even the behavior of mosquitoes depends on the presence of water. Above the place where the water comes close, mosquito swarms in the evenings.

Water close to the surface has a depressing effect on plants, trees are especially affected by it, the roots of which may die. In the same way, water affects animals, no one likes it when their housing is flooded with water, so in those places where groundwater runs close to the surface, you will not find mouse minks or red ant colonies.

For each continent, these maps were compiled by combining runoff, evaporation, and evaporation maps. Moisture deficit in the territory of one or another watershed y=D (or, taking into account equation (3.1) D = tho-* (mm/year) is an indicator of the deficit of water resources of the territory. It shows that it is impossible to eliminate the moisture deficit in the soil even if if the entire runoff is spent on such moistening of the surface of the catchment area, in which evaporation from it would reach the value of evaporation.

Conversely, the difference y-(r 0 -r) \u003d And or And \u003d X - th (mm/year) is an indicator excess water resources of the territory. According to the calculated values of I or D at each node of the working coordinate grid, the isolines of excess and shortage of water resources in various regions of the continents were drawn on the map (Fig. 3.6).

It is generally accepted that the most favorable for agriculture water supply of the territory in the range of excess-deficit of water resources from I, equal to +200, to D, equal to -200 mm/year. Other areas for sustainable agriculture require irrigation or drainage melioration. But even in areas with favorable average water supply conditions over a long period, bilateral reclamation (irrigation and drainage systems) is also recognized as expedient to ensure equally high yields of cultivated crops both in high-water and dry years.

From the analysis of the methodology for compiling maps of the Atlas of the DHS, it follows:

1. At present, this atlas is the most widely available and reliable source of hydrological information.

Rice. 3.6. Fragment of the map "Excess and deficit of water resources of rivers" |17, sheet 30]: / - excess, mm/year; 2- deficit, mm/year rations on the spatial diversity of the structure of the water balance of the continents and its intra-annual changes in different areas of the land.

2. The main map of the atlas should be considered a map of atmospheric precipitation, because, firstly, a many times larger number of observation points for a longer (80-year) calculation period compared to maps of other characteristics were used to construct the field, and secondly, the it uses information to calculate evaporation, runoff coefficient and runoff from 55% of the land area where the hydrometric network is not yet well developed. Therefore, the "interdependence of the maps of the atlas" is relative, since instrumental errors in accounting for precipitation could have an impact on the values of other mapped characteristics.
3. The runoff maps in the atlas characterize its "norm" according to observational data in the 1930s-60s, when the anthropogenic impact on the runoff was generally significantly less than the current one. Then the world population was approximately half as much, the urban population - 10 times (hence, the area of urbanized territories was smaller), the number of reservoirs - 1.5, and their total volume - almost 2 times less. Therefore, when using the MVB Atlas maps, it is important to assess the possible water management transformation of river runoff in its sources under the influence of water supply and sewerage systems of large cities or its regulation by large reservoirs and their cascades.

After the publication of the WB Atlas, 10 years later, “Maps of water balance elements for the territory of Central and Eastern Europe” (1984) were published on a scale of 1: 5,000,000. They were compiled using the “Climate Atlas of Europe”, published by UNESCO and WMO in 1975 d. This set of water balance maps includes the following maps:

precipitation;
evaporation from the surface of watersheds;
surface runoff;
underground runoff into rivers.

The stock series are given for the same 30-year period (1931 - 1960) as in the MVB Atlas. In this case, we used data on runoff in cross-sections closing watersheds with an area of no more than 1000 km 2 for zonal foreign rivers and an area of no more than 20 thousand km 2 for zonal ETS rivers.

This set of larger-scale hydrological maps published in Budapest can be used to improve the reliability of the assessment of the water balance components of river systems located in Russia, Eastern and Central Europe.

Water resources by country (km 3 / year)

Most of the water resources per capita are in French Guiana (609,091 m 3), Iceland (539,638 m 3), Guyana (315,858 m 3), Suriname (236,893 m 3), Congo (230,125 m 3), Papua New Guinea (121,788 m3), Gabon (113,260 m3), Bhutan (113,157 m3), Canada (87,255 m3), Norway (80,134 m3), New Zealand (77.305 m3), Peru (66,338 m3), Bolivia (64,215 m3), Liberia (61,165 m3), Chile (54,868 m3), Paraguay (53,863 m3), Laos (53,747 m3), Colombia ( 47,365 m3), Venezuela (43,846 m3), Panama (43,502 m3), Brazil (42,866 m3), Uruguay (41,505 m3), Nicaragua (34,710 m3), Fiji (33,827 m3 3), the Central African Republic (33,280 m3), Russia (31,833 m3).
The least water resources per capita are in Kuwait (6.85 m 3), the United Arab Emirates (33.44 m 3), Qatar (45.28 m 3), the Bahamas (59.17 m 3), in Oman (91.63 m 3), Saudi Arabia (95.23 m 3), Libya (95.32 m 3).
On average on Earth, each person has 24,646 m 3 (24,650,000 liters) of water per year.

The next map is even more interesting.

Share of transboundary runoff in the total annual runoff of the rivers of the countries of the world (in %)
Few countries in the world rich in water resources can boast of having "at their disposal" river basins that are not separated by territorial boundaries. Why is it so important? Take for example the largest tributary of the Ob - the Irtysh. () . The source of the Irtysh is located on the border of Mongolia and China, then the river flows through the territory of China for more than 500 km, crosses the state border and flows through the territory of Kazakhstan for about 1800 km, then the Irtysh flows for about 2000 km through the territory of Russia until it flows into the Ob. According to international agreements, China can take half of the annual flow of the Irtysh for its own needs, Kazakhstan - half of what remains after China. As a result, this can greatly affect the full flow of the Russian section of the Irtysh (including hydropower resources). At present, China annually Russia 2 billion km 3 of water. Therefore, the water supply of each country in the future may depend on whether the sources of rivers or sections of their channels are outside the country. Let's see how things stand with the strategic "water independence" in the world.

The map presented to your attention above illustrates the percentage of the volume of renewable water resources entering the country from the territory of neighboring states, of the total volume of the country's water resources. (A country with a value of 0% does not “receive” water resources at all from the territories of neighboring countries; 100% - all water resources come from outside the state).

The map shows that the following states are the most dependent on the “supplies” of water from the territory of neighboring countries: Kuwait (100%), Turkmenistan (97.1%), Egypt (96.9%), Mauritania (96.5%) , Hungary (94.2%), Moldova (91.4%), Bangladesh (91.3%), Niger (89.6%), Netherlands (87.9%).

In the post-Soviet space, the situation is as follows: Turkmenistan (97.1%), Moldova (91.4%), Uzbekistan (77.4%), Azerbaijan (76.6%), Ukraine (62%), Latvia (52. 8%), Belarus (35.9%), Lithuania (37.5%), Kazakhstan (31.2%), Tajikistan (16.7%) Armenia (11.7%), Georgia (8.2%) , Russia (4.3%), Estonia (0.8%), Kyrgyzstan (0%).

Now let's try to do some calculations, but first let's make rating of countries by water resources:

1. Brazil (8,233 km 3) - (Share of transboundary flow: 34.2%)
2. Russia (4,508 km 3) - (Share of transboundary flow: 4.3%)
3. USA (3,051 km 3) - (Share of transboundary flow: 8.2%)
4. Canada (2,902 km 3) - (Share of transboundary flow: 1.8%)
5. Indonesia (2,838 km 3) - (Share of transboundary flow: 0%)
6. China (2,830 km 3) - (Share of transboundary flow: 0.6%)
7. Colombia (2,132 km 3) - (Share of transboundary flow: 0.9%)
8. Peru (1,913 km 3) - (Share of transboundary flow: 15.5%)
9. India (1,880 km 3) - (Share of transboundary flow: 33.4%)
10. Congo (1,283 km 3) - (Share of transboundary flow: 29.9%)
11. Venezuela (1,233 km 3) - (Share of transboundary flow: 41.4%)
12. Bangladesh (1,211 km 3) - (Share of transboundary flow: 91.3%)
13. Burma (1,046 km 3) - (Share of transboundary flow: 15.8%)

Now, based on these data, we will compile our rating of countries whose water resources are least dependent on the potential reduction in transboundary flow caused by water intake by countries located upstream.

1. Brazil (5,417 km 3)
2. Russia (4,314 km 3)
3. Canada (2,850 km 3)
4. Indonesia (2,838 km 3)
5. China (2,813 km 3)
6. USA (2,801 km 3)
7. Colombia (2,113 km 3)
8. Peru (1,617 km 3)
9. India (1,252 km 3)
10. Burma (881 km 3)
11. Congo (834 km 3)
12. Venezuela (723 km 3)
13. Bangladesh (105 km 3)