Ob-Irtysh River

The ob river originates in the Altai Mountains in southern Russia and flows northwest across the Western Siberian Lowland, a vast expanse of flat land surrounded by mountains on three sides and the Arctic Ocean to the north. The Irtysh River begins in the highlands of China's Sinkiang Province, flows to the northwest, and joins the Ob near the town of Khanty-Mansiysk well within the Western Siberian Lowland. To the east of the Ob/Irtysh Basin and along the foothills of the Central Siberian Highlands the Yenisey River flows north to its mouth on the Arctic Ocean. Both of these river systems move considerable volumes of water across the flat expanse of the confined lowland.

Because the rivers flow north, they freeze in the fall of the year from their mouths southward precluding the free flow of water within its channel. When the spring thaws begin, water is first liberated along the southern extent of these mighty rivers. The physical outcome in both seasons is the accumulation of millions of gallons of water on the surface of the lowland. Some of the water is absorbed into the ground, but most of the accumulation stays on the surface creating a literal swamp comparable in size to approximately one-third the area of the contiguous United States. In winter the swamp turns into an enormous field of ice. In the warm season the standing water makes transit across the plain nearly impossible. In addition, much of the lowland is underlain with permafrost, a condition that limits the amount of water that can be absorbed and renders the surface impractical for the construction of road beds and rail lines. The Trans-Siberian Railroad, which runs from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, crosses the Ural Mountains at Yekaterinburg and then proceeds south and east in order to avoid the swamp conditions on the lowland.

Both the Ob and Irtysh are navigable during the warm seasons. Since 1933 the Russian Northern Sea Route has operated large vessels on the icefree waters of the Arctic Ocean near the Siberian coast and in the major rivers for four months a year. The city of Omsk is an important river port on the Irtysh, and Novosibirsk, home of the world famous Academ Gorodok (Science City), a cluster of national research institutions, is located on the [Page 1284]Ob. Both cities are key points on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. A number of hydroelectric generating plants have been built at points in the Ob-Irtysh river basin and a dam was constructed on the Ob at Novosibirsk, creating the Ob Sea, the largest artificial lake in Siberia.

The Ob River has been identified as a possible source of water to refill the decimated Aral Sea, which has dried to about 10 percent of its original size. The demise of the Aral Sea is one of the most serious environmental catastrophes in recent years. The Davidov Plan, conceived during the Soviet era, envisioned the construction of water diversion channels leading from the Ob River to the Aral Sea and other areas within the deserts of Kazakhstan. However, the plan was shelved following the introduction of glasnost in the 1980s and the Aral Sea continues to shrink.

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