Nature and Ecology of Belgorod Region

Версия 10:53, 20 ноября 2009

The Geographical Position of Belgorod Region

The Belgorod region is located on the south-west and south slopes of the Middle Russian Hills in the basins of the Dnieper and the Don Rivers. The extent of the region from north to south is about 190 km, from west to east – about 270 km. The climate is temperate-continental, it is connected with mild winter with snow-fall and thaws and a long summer. The coldest month is January.

Water reservoirs

The Belgorod region belongs to the number of swallow regions of Russia. There are about 500 rivers and brooks. The most of the rivers are small for the space from 10 to 100 km. The main rivers are: the Oscol (220), the Vorskla (115), the Seversky Donest (110), the tichaya Sosna (105). There are about 1000 ponds and reservoirs. The largest of the reservoirs are the Stary Oskol’s tank and Belgorodsky’s tank.

Natural resources of the region

The main natural resource is black earth. The region is rich in mineral and non-mineral resources: iron ore, clay and sand. Two large iron-ore mining and dressing plants are the Stoilensky and Lebedinsky plants.

Nature reserves

The natural peculiarity is the broad-deciduous forests, woods and lots of steppes vegetations. There are some nature reserves in our region: “Vorskla forest” near Borisovka, “Yamskaya steppe” near Alexandrovka village, “Bekaryukovsky forest” near Belgorod, near the villages Arkhangelskoye, Koshlakovo, Logovoye and Churaevo, the Stenki-Izgorye valley close to Novy Oskol, “Lysye Gory” near Gubkin.

The Red Book of Belgorod region

In 2006 there was the main event to Belgorod region. It was the creation of Red Book of Belgorod region. There are some ecological problems of our region. It is very important to solve these problems. Ecology is a science about nature and about relation of man with it. We must keep our region. We must use the gifts it is giving us care fully: water, air, land, plants, animals and minerals. What are the main environmental problems of today in Belgorod region? - air pollution; - water pollution; - smog; - destruction of natural resources (lands, forests etc.)

Types of pollution

Land, air, water are important for flowers, trees, animals, birds, fish and people. On the territory of our region we can see acid rains, hurricanes, town pours and the climate changes. There are a lot of industrial enterprises in region. The development of industrial enterprises promotes not only the town’s growth and improving the town’s dwellers living standard, but also makes worse the ecological situation. The amount of harmful discharges from the building plants, chemical industry and road transport is increasing day from day.

Nowadays the problems of environmental pollution are very actual. People are more concerned about the environment today, we use to discuss the most serious problems as pollution, which has many forms: air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, ozone lay destruction, global warming and others. ..In the majority of cases it’s the result of man’s activity. It has happened because people preoccupied the natural resources. Moreover, people use natural treasure irrationally, which is the most serious point to discuss.

Human's influence

Of course, not only the industrial enterprises pollute the environment on our region, but our people do. Instead the natural relief’s forms appear the artificial ones. For example, the artificial forests, quarries, roads’ embankments, clearings and the saving zones of the electrical lines, garage projects. You can see a lot of garbage’s scrambles along the roads, in the forests and parks, near the house, kitchen – gardens and graveyards. Some people burn their garbage. The smoke from such fires comes into the air and we breathe it.

There is the detour road in Belgorod; most of cars go through the center of the town. That’s why our town became more noisy and dusty.

Actual problems of water

There some rivers in our region. These rivers are the sources of water for the industrial enterprises. And water for people’s need (for drinking, cooking and washing) come from the underground water layers. But the quality of this water is not very good. Firstly, the water in our region is very hard, because it contains a lot of magnesium and calcium salt. Secondly, dust from town’s streets, squares and plant’s territories, chemicals from the fields and people’s garbage wash away and discharge to the rivers.

Not only town’s enterprises pollute our rives, forests, parks, but town’s dwellers do it too. People wash their cars on the banks of the rivers. They very often forget to clean the place after a picnic. We can see many plastic and glass bottles, cans and tix boxes, pieces of paper, plastic packets in the rivers on its banks. All these things pollute the rivers and their banks. We must teach ourselves and our children to save the natural resources of our region.