The environmental problems of the Arctic deserts as a climate-forming ecosystem are changing the face of the entire planet. The international community is concerned about the melting of the ice, as well as the impoverishment of the already poor flora and fauna of the Arctic territories and the tundra. Understanding the problems of this fragile, but such an important ecosystem is the first step to preserving life on the planet.
Where it is thin and torn
The Arctic is the northern edge of an area of 27 million square kilometers, the southern border of which is the southern border of the tundra zone. Only 6 million square kilometers is the mainland of Europe, Asia and North America. About 4 million square kilometers are in island territories.
Extremely sensitive to the slightest change with low self-healing ability, the ecosystem of the Arctic desert and tundra is very vulnerable. The rich and often endemic species composition of flora and fauna requires a very careful attitude.
It is what it is
Factors that threaten the ecosystems of the Arctic and the tundra can be roughly divided into natural and man-made. But division is conditional. All processes on the planet are interconnected by the finest threads, which are sometimes not obvious at first glance. But it is not for nothing that environmentalists and the world community have been actively introducing and developing the concept of sustainable development, combining environmental, economic and social components, from the 90s of the last century. There are many potential threats to the Arctic, but we will single out the most significant environmental problems of the Arctic deserts.
Planet warming
In conditions of global warming, it turned out that the Arctic is heating faster than other regions. And the consequences of rising temperatures here are of global importance. Studies show that in the near future, Arctic ice may begin to completely disappear in the summer.
The consequences of this will be an even greater increase in temperature. After all, it is the Arctic ice that reflects solar radiation, lowering the temperature on the planet. Already today, facts of the death of polar bears due to the large distances between the ice floes have been recorded. These strong native northern inhabitants lost strength and were drowning.
Rich resource region
Extraction and search of minerals (oil, gas) leads to large-scale pollution by production products. The environmental problems of the Arctic deserts are associated not only with the development of deposits in the Arctic, but also with pollutants coming from other regions. Only by river flows several hundred tons of oil products waste are brought into the Arctic Ocean. Reclamation of contaminated soils in the oil production area is often only a formality.
The danger is leaks and oil spills during its production. In addition, methane gas is a by-product of oil production, and its role in global warming is enormous.
Uncontrolled poaching
For oil workers in the Arctic zone come poachers. And this is not one hunter who came on a sleigh. Infrastructure development in previously undeveloped areas is the way of organized poaching. There is evidence that up to 300 polar bears per year fall under the bullets of poachers. The illegal production of whitefish and sturgeon in the lower reaches of the rivers of Western Siberia is only a small fraction of what brings environmental problems to the Arctic deserts of Russia.
Groundwater problem
It is impossible to single out what exactly worsens the quality of groundwater in the Arctic - the local consequences of oil exploration or pollution of rivers and oceans. However, in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, groundwater contains a limiting amount of petroleum hydrocarbons, and sometimes this figure is ten times higher than the norm.
This phenomenon can create not only the environmental problems of the Arctic deserts in Russia, but also be dangerous globally.
Offshore gas and oil
Modern technology has enabled energy companies to extract resources from offshore fields. Environmentalists are sounding the alarm, because the development of offshore fields is already dangerous at the stage of seismic exploration, not to mention transportation by tankers or pipelines.
The environmental problems of the Arctic deserts of Russia have already begun since the installation of the Prirazlomnaya (Gazprom) drilling platform on the offshore site in the Pechora Sea.
There are no effective oil spill response techniques in the world at northern low temperatures. According to international experts, if the water area is 10% covered with ice, mechanical cleaning agents are ineffective. Oil thickening at low temperatures, the remoteness of the platforms from the mainland reduce the possibility of oil spill response.
Ecological problems of the Arctic deserts: flora and fauna
Offshore development issues are not limited to this. Whatever the cause of the oil leak (a collision with an iceberg, for example, is not so impossible), this will have devastating consequences for representatives of the living world. The Prirazlomnaya drilling platform is located less than 100 kilometers in a straight line from the Nenets Reserve and several nature reserves of federal significance. And a similar situation is observed in other fields of gas and oil on the shelves of specially protected natural territories of Russia.
The environmental problems of the Arctic deserts and tundra are not limited to the given examples. The Russian Federation and countries that are members of the Arctic Council (1996) are conducting large-scale international work aimed at preserving the still largely untouched ecosystems of the Arctic.