When and why Amur is poured?

In August 2013 there was a grandioseflooding, which affected 98 thousand residents of the Russian Far East. Amur emerged from its banks - the largest river of these places. Flood scientists have called the largest in the last hundred years. The river flooded the territories that are thirty kilometers from its habitual channel.

The scale of the tragedy made many people think about why the Cupid is pouring, and whether it is possible to somehow prevent the disastrous consequences of flooding.

A bit of theory

Rivers that are in climatic zones withsharply pronounced seasons of the year or originating high in the mountains, among the glaciers, always have high water and low water. In nature there is an eternal water exchange. Moisture, evaporating from the oceans, turns into clouds that carry sediments. Rain, falling to the ground, penetrates into the groundwater and sates the rivers, which, in turn, carry their waves into the sea. Therefore, before you understand why the Cupid is pouring, You need to understand what he eats.

Specificity of the river

We are used to the fact that the high waters near the rivers of Russiais due in the spring, since the overwhelming majority of them have snow feeding. When it becomes warm, thawed waters overflow the Volga, the Oka, the Dnieper and the like blue arteries. Mezhen (the shallowest water level) occurs in them in the summer and in the first half of the autumn, when there is little precipitation. But Cupid is not such a typical river. It flows in the zone of the monsoon climate, characterized by the fact that in the summer here the eastern winds are blowing from the Pacific Ocean.

It is in the climatic features that an answer should be sought to the question of why the Cupid is poured.

Winters in this region are severe, but not very snowy. Somewhere in November in the Amur River basin, as well as on itstributaries - Zee, Bureya, Ussuri and Sungari - ice starts, which opens only in early May. For almost half a year these rivers receive only underground food - from groundwater and springs. Because of the little snowy winter, there is no spring flood on the local rivers.

But when the summer monsoons start to blow, bringing down from the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and the Sea of ​​Japan downpours and typhoons, the water level in the Amur and its tributaries sharply rises, since the food of these rivers is mostly rain.

Is it possible to prevent a catastrophe

If the high water in the Amur occurs every summer, thenwhy exactly August 2013 is inscribed in the history of Russia with a black date? There is also such a geographical concept as flood. It comes from the riot of elements and has a sudden, very harsh character. Flooding occurs because of strong and protracted showers (for example, when the monthly rainfall falls for 1-2 days) or because of the sharp melting of snows in the mountains. And in 2013, the typhoon was added to the action of the wet summer monsoon. An important factor was that the storm on the Sea of ​​Okhotsk drove back into the interior of the mainland river water from a shallow estuary. Oils to the fire poured and breakthrough the dam. Thus, it is not enough to know why the Cupid is pouring, it is also necessary to realize that August-September is the time of typhoons.

Is it possible to solve the problem? Yes, as the experience of many countries shows. The same Chinese, the territory of resettlement which runs along the other bank of the Amur, invest a lot of money to strengthen it from erosion. In Europe, in the upper course of rivers and tributaries, a cascade of reservoirs is established. This saving circuit makes it possible to accumulate excess water, so that it can gradually be lowered down during the intergeneration. This experience we need to adopt, and not be content with the fact that the level of the Amur today is within the norm.