West Siberian plain: nature, climate and other information

The West Siberian Plain is one of the greatest plains in the world. From north to south it stretches for two and a half thousand kilometers, from west to east - a little less than two thousand. Its natural boundaries are: in the north - the seas of the Arctic Ocean, in the south - the Kazakh melkosopochnik, in the west - the Urals and in the east - the Yenisei. The area of the plain is slightly less than three million square kilometers.

There are many deposits of various minerals here. But the main ones are hydrocarbons. The West Siberian Plain is the largest oil and gas bearing region of the Russian Federation and one of the largest in the world.

The large area and relative homogeneity of the relief caused the West Siberian Plain to include a large number of natural and climatic zones, with a clear distribution from the north to the south. In areas adjacent to the Arctic Ocean, the dominant type of landscape is the tundra with extensive wetlands. To the south the character of the terrain is gradually changing. Tundra is replaced by forest-tundra with islands of low trees, to the south - taiga, consisting of dark coniferous trees, south of the belt of deciduous forests. At about the fifty-fifth parallel, forest massifs are diluted with steppe and fields, and there are almost no forests on the border with Kazakhstan, with the exception of the eastern plains.

In the seventies of the last century, the West Siberian plain underwent strong anthropogenic impact. The impact continues to this day. This is due to the beginning of mass development of hydrocarbon fields. But even now, vast areas outside hydrocarbon fields remain wild, as they were many years ago.

Natural conditions even at one latitude are slightly different here. This is due to the fact that the West Siberian Plain, whose climate depends on the presence of a natural barrier (the Urals), which protects from warm western winds, lies in the transition from a moderately continental climate to a sharply continental climate . And if the difference between the prevailing summer and winter temperatures in the regions adjacent to the Urals is less pronounced, then the left bank of the Yenisei is already a territory where a full-fledged continental climate reigns .

There are no great differences in altitude, but there are still small hills, lowlands and swamps, which are particularly rich in the West Siberian Plain. The relief, it seems, consists of elements (Vasyugan plain, Kulunda wound, Baraba lowland, and so on), competing among themselves - who is lower. And only in the north are the Siberian Uvaly - A chain of nine hundred kilometers, the highest point of which barely exceeded three hundred meters.

Separately, it should be said about the rivers of the West Siberian Plain. Almost the whole territory is occupied by the Ob basin with the main Irtysh tributary. The eastern part of the plain enters the Yenisei basin. Water resources are abundant. But because of the flat nature of the river and the absence of elevations in the heights of large hydroelectric power stations, it is practically not there, with the exception of Novosibirsk, located in the upper reaches. Despite the huge potential, the construction of a hydroelectric power station on the Ob is lower than Novosibirsk, since in this case a vast territory will be flooded.