Geography for Life Activities

Transcription

1 ACTIVITY 17 National Geography Standard 15 Geography for Life Activities Waterways of Russia Russia s coastline is nearly twice as long as that of the United States (about 23,000 miles versus 12,000 miles). It has about 63,000 miles of navigable inland waterways, more than any other country except China. In this exercise, you will become familiar with Russia s waterways and learn about both their usefulness and their problems. Begin by using your textbook and an atlas to label the following bodies of water and cities on the map at the end of this activity. Notice as you work how many of Russia s large cities are located on major rivers. The Volga-Kama system is particularly city-rich. Rivers: Amur, Angara, Don, Irtysh, Kama, Kolyma, Lena, Northern Dvina, Ob, Pechora, Volga, Yenisey Salt Water Bodies: Sea of Azov, Baltic Sea, Barents Sea, Black Sea, Caspian Sea, East Siberian Sea, Gulf of Finland, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, Tatar Strait, White Sea Seaports: Arkangelsk, Astrakhan, Dudinka, Kaliningrad, Murmansk, Novorossiysk, Petropavlovsk Kamchatskiy, Rostov-na-Donau, St. Petersburg, Salekard, Tiksi, Vladivostok River Ports : Bratsk, Chita, Krasnoyarsk, Moscow, Nizhniy Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Samara, Volgograd, Yakutsk You Are the Geographer Now that you have completed your map, answer the following questions. 1. Which Russian rivers flow from south to north and empty into seas and bays of the Arctic Ocean? 2. Which river flows from east to west and empties into the Tatar Strait? 3. Which river flows from north to south and empties into the Sea of Azov? Which one flows from north to south and empties into the Caspian Sea? What city is located near the canal that joins these two rivers? Holt World Geography Today 65 Geography for Life Activities

2 4. Which south-flowing river is connected by canals, lakes, and minor rivers northward to the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic? 5. Most Russian seaports are closed by ice part of the year. What are the three exceptions? These three each have some other geographical disability. What is it in each case? 6. Except for Murmansk, all seaports on the Arctic and Pacific sides of Russia are closed by ice in the winter and the spring. In some of these ports, the shipping season is extended by the use of icebreakers. What other ports on other seas are closed part of the year too? 7. Which rivers are ice-bound for half (or longer) of each year? Which river ports are ice-bound for half of each year or longer? Which river ports are ice-bound between one-quarter and one-half of the year? 8. The upper (southern) reaches of Russia s north-flowing rivers melt while the lower (northern) reaches are still frozen. What do you think happens as a result? How does widespread permafrost make this problem worse? Holt World Geography Today 66 Geography for Life Activities

3 9. Railroads are much more important than waterways for moving most kinds of goods in Russia. Use an atlas to identify (a) the part of Russia with the highest density of rail lines and (b) the part of Russia that is completely without rail lines. How may rail lines connect western Russia all the way to the Pacific shore? 10. Russian waterways, in part because of their climatic and locational problems, have not been used nearly as much as they could be. Investment in them has fallen dramatically since the collapse of the Soviet Union. As a result, one-quarter of the system has become dangerously silted up. However, there is a lot of interest from international organizations and European shippers in helping Russia restore and upgrade its waterways in exchange for letting foreign vessels (which are now excluded) use them. What do you think could be the pluses and minuses of such an effort? Holt World Geography Today 67 Geography for Life Activities

4 N W E S Russia Miles Kilometers Spring Ice Autumn Ice Polar Ice 180 Seaport Number of days with ice on rivers Navigated rivers and canals Holt World Geography Today 68 Geography for Life Activities

5 Matamoros, Vancouver-Victoria-Seattle- Tacoma, Detroit-Windsor, Toronto- Buffalo, and maybe someday, Miami-Havana! Activity 15 Students plans should demonstrate a thorough understanding of the material and history of Berlin. Accept all reasonable responses. Activity Answers will vary but students should note the large increases in foreign residents from Central and South America as well as Africa. 2. Autonomous communities with the highest levels of foreign residents are of two kinds, island groups and the autonomous communities with Spain s two largest cities. Island groups (including Spain s islands on the African continent) are highly accessible to immigrants (many illegal immigrants come by boat), especially from North Africa, and also offer many jobs in the tourism sector. Madrid and Barcelona offer diverse job opportunities and the largest established communities of foreign residents who act as magnets to others, thus setting up migration chains. The next group includes Andalucia and Valencia, which are coastal, making them easily accessible; also their economies include large labor-intensive agricultural and tourism sectors. Galicia may receive migrants from overseas via its ports and coasts, but also Portuguese from nearby, as the Galicians share their language and other cultural traits with the Portuguese. The more industrialized north of Spain attracts fewer immigrants, who are underrepresented throughout Spain in manufacturing jobs (or at least in noninformal manufacturing jobs). The autonomous communities with the fewest migrants are in Spain s interior, which makes them the least accessible and also less likely to have many jobs in intensive agriculture or tourism (which in Spain is beach-oriented). They also have few large cities. Activity Northern Dvina, Pechora, Ob /Irtysh, Yenisey/Angara, Lena, Kolyma 2. Amur 3. Don, Volga, Volgograd 4. Volga 5. Novorossiysk, Kaliningrad, and Murmansk. Even though Novorossiysk itself is ice-free year-round, it is not connected to an ice-free inland waterway system; also use of the Black Sea requires agreement with other nations. Kaliningrad is an exclave of Russia, unconnected to it except by way of other countries. Murmansk is peripheral and in the winter goods cannot reach it via an ice-free waterway, but require a rail trip. (Also, technically, it is not ice-free, but is kept open for about 50 days out of the year by ice-breakers.) 6. St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland and Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea 7. The Pechora, Ob, Yenisey, Lena, Kolyma; Novosibirsk, Chita, Yakutsk; Bratsk, Krasnoyarsk, Moscow, Nizhniy Novgorod, Omsk, Samara, Volgograd 8. Massive flooding; permafrost means the floodwaters can t drain into the soil. Huge expanses of overflow persist for months, making transportation difficult and creating vast habitat for mosquitos and other blood-sucking insects. 9. (a) The north west, focused on Moscow; (b) the north east (Eastern Siberia and the northern Far East). Two, the Transiberian Railroad the Baikal-Amur Mainline. 10. Plusses: access to foreign money to help pay for improvements, bettering the economic situations of inland cities through better transportation links, stimulating trade, improving access to waterways in Europe for Russian vessels, reducing pollution by switching from truck transport to shipping; minus: foreign vessels and trading firms capturing a large share of Russian business. Holt World Geography Today 134 Geography for Life Activities