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   ChrisO_wiki (chriso_wiki@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 05:27:26 JST ChrisO_wiki

   6/ As an English traveller wrote in 1855, Crimea's interior in the summer was a place "of melancholy desolation. The grasses and flowers are then dust and ashes; the surface is a perfect desert; and can only support a few herbs and scrubby bushes..." Hunger was frequent.

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     ChrisO_wiki (chriso_wiki@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 05:27:23 JST ChrisO_wiki

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     15/ As a result of the ongoing drought and water shortages, Crimea and the Azov region seem to be reverting rapidly to their pre-Soviet condition as near-desert areas. Much agriculture, and even human habitation, may no longer be possible. As many as 500,000 people have been predicted to be forced to leave.

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     ChrisO_wiki (chriso_wiki@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 05:27:24 JST ChrisO_wiki

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     11/ Despite the loss of the dam, demands on the water supply have actually increased since 2022 due to Russia's military presence. Civilian settlements have had their water supplies cut off for days at a time to ensure that the military receives enough water.

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     ChrisO_wiki (chriso_wiki@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 05:27:24 JST ChrisO_wiki

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     12/ The dam's destruction on 9 June 2023 had immediate effects. Within two weeks, NASA satellites recorded the North Crimean Canal drying up. It provided 85% of Crimea's water. The Russians are now reportedly trying to top it up with water from Crimea's few small reservoirs and from wells.

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     ChrisO_wiki (chriso_wiki@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 05:27:24 JST ChrisO_wiki

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     13/ The peninsula has 15 reservoirs to capture rainwater and snowmelt, with a combined volume of about 250 million cubic meters. However, half of them have capacities of under 10 million cubic meters, and they were never intended to replace the canal water.

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     ChrisO_wiki (chriso_wiki@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 05:27:24 JST ChrisO_wiki

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     14/ Crimea had an extremely dry winter in 2023-24, with only 10-50% of the normal precipitation overall and only 17% of the normal mountain precipitation. Rivers have dried up and reservoirs are already severely depleted, as seen here in the case of the Bilohirs'ke reservoir.

     Rasmus Fleischer repeated this.
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     ChrisO_wiki (chriso_wiki@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 05:27:25 JST ChrisO_wiki

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     7/ Until the late 1940s, the Russians barely even bothered with the interior of Crimea, preferring to settle instead on the Mediterranean-to-subtropical coast. In contrast to "European" Crimea on the coast, "Asiatic" inland Crimea was desperately poor and neglected.

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     ChrisO_wiki (chriso_wiki@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 05:27:25 JST ChrisO_wiki

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     8/ The Soviets sought to develop Crimea with agriculture and industries, but Soviet agronomists found that it took 500 tons of water to grow a single ton of wheat in the region. There are few rivers in Crimea or the southern Kherson oblast, making it necessary to bring water in from the mainland. As Soviet official Leonid Melnikov wrote in 1950:

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     ChrisO_wiki (chriso_wiki@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 05:27:25 JST ChrisO_wiki

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     9/ "The fertile soils of these regions do not always properly reward the labours of the collective farmers... Dry winds and black dust storms frequently devastate the fields and destroy the fruits of the labour of many thousands of people ...

     "In 60 years, at the junction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there were 20 drought-stricken years in the southern districts of the Ukraine ... Drought, occurring every three or four years, frequently assumed the proportions of a calamity."

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     ChrisO_wiki (chriso_wiki@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 05:27:25 JST ChrisO_wiki

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     10/ The construction of the Kakhovka Dam and the canal network enabled the development of industrial agriculture across the newly irrigated region. Many circular fields watered on the centre-pivot irrigation principle can be seen clearly in satellite images, built along the lines of the canals.

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     ChrisO_wiki (chriso_wiki@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 07:06:00 JST ChrisO_wiki

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     17/ One farmer interviewed by Radio Free Europe has noted that even drought-resistant crops are now dying out. Farmers have had to write off their crops. Little is now growing:

     "Everything has dried up, there were few strawberries this year, and the wild berry glades have burned out from the heat, there are stone fruits, but they are small. Because of the heat and drought, there is no green grass, only dry grass, and milk yields have dropped sharply."

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     ChrisO_wiki (chriso_wiki@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 07:06:00 JST ChrisO_wiki

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     18/ "There will be no hayfields in such conditions, which means that they will have to buy hay at high prices, if it is available at all. In such circumstances, villagers are beginning to reduce the number of livestock and abandon vegetable gardens. In many villages, the water pressure in the system is already low, as water consumption is in excess of the norm. I think we will soon start to see water cut-offs, and there will be a big problem with water in Crimea this summer." /end

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     ChrisO_wiki (chriso_wiki@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 07:06:00 JST ChrisO_wiki

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     Sources:

     🔹 https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/151622/canals-in-ukraine-are-drying-up
     🔹 https://jamestown.org/program/water-shortages-in-russian-occupied-crimea-set-to-trigger-mass-outmigration/
     🔹 https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-society/3873022-water-level-drops-in-occupied-crimeas-rivers.html
     🔹 https://unn.ua/en/news/crimea-faces-water-shortages-forced-to-use-reservoir-resources-to-fill-the-north-crimean-canal
     🔹 https://unn.ua/en/news/crimea-claims-shallowing-of-belogorskoye-reservoir-local-historian-says-it-threatens-water-supply-situation
     🔹 https://unn.ua/en/news/even-drought-tolerant-crops-suffer-severe-drought-in-occupied-crimea
     🔹 https://24tv.ua/ru/zasuha-v-krymu-stanovitsja-realnoj-ugrozoj_n1340691
     🔹 https://crimea.ria.ru/20240504/v-krymu-peresokhli-dve-reki-ekspert-otsenil-riski-zasukhi-1137009860.html
     🔹 https://crimea.ria.ru/20240521/v-krymu-nachalas-zasukha--agrarii-spisyvayut-posevy-1137450307.html
     🔹 https://glam1.gsfc.nasa.gov/

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     ChrisO_wiki (chriso_wiki@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 07:06:01 JST ChrisO_wiki

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     16/ The region's vegetation had already been stressed badly by the North Crimean Canal being cut off by the Ukrainians between 2014 and 2022 (it was reopened briefly after the 2022 invasion). The difference in vegetation cover between July 2013 and July 2024 is stark.

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     Tofu Golem (tofugolem@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 07:06:48 JST Tofu Golem

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     @ChrisO_wiki
     So let me get this straight: Russians blew up that dam because they thought it would hurt Ukrainians, and now Crimea is turning back into a desert?

     They put all that effort into moving all those Russians into Crimea, and now they're just going to have to leave again.

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     Paladin :verified: :ak: (paladin@mastodon.nu)'s status on Sunday, 21-Jul-2024 07:06:48 JST Paladin :verified: :ak:

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     • Tofu Golem

     @tofugolem @ChrisO_wiki Putins guys are not well versed outside stealing and selling oil products. The more intelligent ones stole and sold metallurgy products. After that you can steal other companies but then you have to buy shit and add value. Too complicated for the thugs.

     They are stuck with people that have no clue about running complex businesses even less running societies. Blowing the dam looked like a good idea at the moment, in a narrow perspective. Truly orcs.

     NeonPurpleStar :heart_bi: likes this.