Every year, floods cause material damage, which would be enough to increase the pensions of each pensioner several times. Hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of land are flooded with water both in spring and summer. Harvests are destroyed, both farm and private in the gardens. Is it possible to somehow influence the reasons for the flood? Why did they stop deepening river channels across the country? Out of savings? But it was the fairways, cleared in summer, that prevented the flooding of rivers for kilometers around the river banks in the spring during ice drift. Spills are indispensable in spring. Ice rises in hummocks on the river and stops and forces the flow of spring waters to fill all low-lying places beyond the banks. Let's remember "Grandfather Mazai". Then, however, no one thought about clearing the fairway, only in some places of the rivers river dredges worked. But the human impact on the rivers was less. Even in 1927, brigades of barge haulers worked on the rivers of Russia, who lifted merchant ships with straps against the river flow. Now everyone remembered Repin's painting "Barge Haulers on the Volga". But I want to warn them that the barge haulers were one of the wealthiest hired workers in the country. To get into the mob means to secure your future. There were also women's gangs dragging ships along all the rivers of Russia. Paddle steamers, while not the most effective ships against propeller-driven ones, nevertheless caused less damage to rivers and banks. The increase in industry led to more efficient river ships - propeller driven. But the wave thrown by them on the shore brings more harm and therefore a person working on the river must interfere in the course of the "life" of the river or harming the banks and the river bed, it is necessary to compensate for this damage with his own expenses for deepening the rivers. Suffice it to recall that the Ural River, in the place where the legendary hero of the Civil War Vasily Chapaev once died, is now so shallow that you can wade it by rolling up your trousers.
What happens to rivers that are unable to withstand human activities?
By their nature, rivers flowing from south to north or from north to south undermine the bank, which "presses" on the river flow due to the rotation of the planet from west to east. Rivers born in the upper echelons, such as hills or mountains, have an intense flow. Sometimes this current in spring is so strong that it moves stones or smooths out their sharp corners, turning granite chips into pellets. All this has been happening for centuries. Sinking below the river, they slow down their course and some of the soil fractions, caught up by the current, settle at the bottom of the river. The slower the flow of the river, when it approaches the sea or ocean, the more fractions settle to the bottom. At the very confluence of the river into the sea or ocean, islands are born. The river is divided into branches, sometimes so numerous that a river like the Volga, divided into many channels, becomes absolutely non-navigable. Not many people knowon the existence of the Volga-Caspian Canal, for the passage of ships from the Volga channel to the Caspian Sea. If earlier only the river and its course participated in the creation of river deltas at the confluence of the sea, now the propellers of the ships, raising the fractions of the river bottom, increase the flow of sand to the mouth. The rotation of the planet pushes the flow of rivers to the western bank, and undermines, always steep banks on this side of the river. The coast collapses and its soil is also carried away to the mouth. Here, under the steepest bank, there is the greatest depth of the river and it is here, according to the laws of economics, that the channel of the river deepens. Less funds are needed to deepen it. But along with this comes the collapse of the river bank, and a new avalanche of many tons affects the river bed. And the next year, the dredges again deepen the fairway, directing the river towards the steep bank. And so from year to year,fighting for the depth of the river so that it is navigable and thereby undermining the banks of the river, which collapse into the riverbed. And let's carry out a more difficult laying of the fairway not even in the middle of the river, but closer to the opposite one, and thus prevent the banks from collapsing. Dredges may not take the sand collected from the bottom somewhere, but simply dump it under the steep bank of the river. It's just that not one dredge will move along the river bed, but two buildings: on one the dredge itself will be located, on the other the end of the conveyor will hold, along which sand will be dumped under the steep bank. Dredges may not take the sand collected from the bottom somewhere, but simply dump it under the steep bank of the river. It's just that not one dredge will move along the river bed, but two buildings: on one the dredge itself will be located, on the other the end of the conveyor will hold, along which sand will be dumped under the steep bank. Dredges may not take the sand collected from the bottom somewhere, but simply dump it under the steep bank of the river. It's just that not one dredge will move along the river bed, but two buildings: on one the dredge itself will be located, on the other the end of the conveyor will hold, along which sand will be dumped under the steep bank.
A deep fairway in case of ice jams will allow flood waters to pass under the ice, and not rise over the ice, causing destruction and even death. I call on the Internet for help and show you a picture where we see on the right the original bank of the river and the "understand" that the river created due to the washing of the left bank. In picture number one, we see a more plausible position of the riverbed, closer to the steep bank. We are deepening the fairway there and thus undermining this bank even more. Moving the fairway to the opposite bank, creating a fairway, we save the bank from collapse and the river itself from shallowing.
I understand that this is all "the cry of one crying (thirsty) in the desert" or "starving on the river bank." For many years I have been writing letters to the governors of the regions caught in the flood in various printed newspapers and on various websites. And now everyone is crying about the huge damage from the floods and asking for money to pay for damages. The flood has not yet ended (note: not floods) on the Amur River and the city of Komsomolsk on the Amur was just getting ready for the flood to come to them in a week, and I already suggested minimizing the damage from this flood.
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Why do you need to use pumps of enormous power at the mouth of the river (on the map it is Komsomolsk-on-Amur) and thin the water of the river, pumping water out of the channel, accelerating the movement of the river water and thereby pumping water out of the flood in the upper reaches. What pumps can be used at river mouths? Ships, the propellers of which, according to the laws of shipbuilding, push under the bottom of the ship a mass of water equal to the displacement of the ship in order to propel the ship to the length of its hull. That is, if a ship of a 1,000 tonne ship moves to the length of its hull, then it pushes 750 tonnes of water back, and only pushes back from 250 tonnes. Anchor the ship and anchor it with extra ropes, and it will push 1,000 tons of water downstream in a few minutes. But usually the water passing under the bottom of the ship collides with the mass of water in the channel and slows down,losing its power of movement by throwing water on the banks of the river. In a single case, the water diverges around the ship, where there is less resistance. Place the ships in a wedge along the course of the water so that the subsequent steam does not fall into the wake of the ahead ship. If six ships block the entire river bed like a wedge, have a displacement of 1,000 tons each and a length of 100 meters, then, according to the simplest calculations, at medium speed, in three minutes they will push 18,000 tons of water under the ships' bottoms into the sea from the river bed, or 6,000 tons per minute, 6,000 tons of water more than the natural course of the river. Is it a lot or a little? The Yauza River has a length of 48 km, which means that two ships of 1,000 tons can lower the level of the Yauza River by one meter in three minutes. I’m even afraid that under normal conditions, before the ships reach their maximum propeller speed,they will be forced to stop work in order not to hit the river bottom with the screws. We are talking about 3 minutes at maximum speed, and before maximum speed you need to go through low and medium speed, and this is the time at which the ships will push a smaller mass of water. But what we need is not meters of lowering the river level, but centimeters, which minimize damage from flood waters. After all, we do not need to wait for flood waters in the upper reaches of rivers to spill, causing damage to city buildings and agriculture. We need the flood waters to fit into the riverbed and not cause damage. We need confident work of ships during the entire flood shower that overflows the channel of the arm. In this case, the river bed serves as a fire hose for us, with the help of which we pump out water from the flooded basement. If without a pump,water poured out only after overfilling the basement, then we now pump it out with pumps.
Even if I exaggerate the ability of ships to pump water from the river bed, in any case, ships will minimize flood damage.
Author: Pavel Shasherin