The Northern river reversal or Siberian river reversal was a grandiose project to divert the flow of the Northern rivers in the Soviet Union, which "uselessly" drain into the Arctic Ocean, southwards, towards the populated agricultural areas of Central Asia, which lack water.^[1][2]

Development of the river rerouting projects

The project of turning some of the flow of the northern rivers to the south was discussed, on a smaller scale, as early as the 1930s. In November 1933, a special conference of the USSR Academy of Sciences approved a plan for a "reconstruction of the Volga and its basin", which included the diversion into the Volga of some of the waters of the Pechora and the Northern Dvina - two rivers in the north of European Russia that flow into the seas of the Arctic Ocean. Research in that direction was then conducted by the Hydroproject, the dam and canal institute led by Sergey Yakovlevich Zhuk (). Some design plans were developed by Zhuk's institute, but without either much publicity or actual construction work. ^[3]

In January 1961, several years after Zhuk's death, Nikita Khrushchev presented a memo authored by Zhuk and another engineer, G.Russo, about the river rerouting plan to the Central Committee of the CPSU.^[3] Despite the ousting of Khrushchev in 1964, talks about the projects of turning the major rivers Pechora, Kama, Tobol, Ishim, Irtysh, and Ob resumed in the late 1960s.^[4] Some 120 institutes and agencies participated in the impact study coordinated by the Academy of Sciences; a dozen of conferences were held on the matter. The promoters of the project claimed that extra food production due to the availability of Siberian water for the irrigation in Central Asia could provide food for some 200,000,000 people.^[3]

The plans involved not only irrigation but also the replenishing of the shrinking Aral Sea and Caspian Sea.

In 1971, at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna the Soviets disclosed information about successful earthworks on the route of the Pechora-Kama Canal using detonations of three 15-kiloton nuclear devices spaced 500 feet apart, claiming negligible radioactive fallout.^[1] However, no further construction work, nuclear or otherwise, was conducted on that canal.

Criticism of the project and its abandonment

The project was heavily criticized by many academics, writers, and journalists, in particular for its environmental costs, and eventually abandoned in mid-1980s. The final nail in its coffin was the Resolution of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On the Cessation of the Work on the Partial Flow Transfer of Northern and Siberian Rivers", passed in 1986.^[5]

Calls for resumption of the project

In early 21st century talks about river reversal were renewed by the leaders of both Uzbekistan^[6] and Kazakhstan.^[7] These proposals met an enthusiastic response from one of Russia's most influential politicians, Moscow mayor Luzhkov^[8].

See also

• Water exports
• Chicago River reversal

References

1. ↑ ^{a b} Saving the Caspian
2. ↑ Making Rivers Run Backward
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Douglas R. Weiner, "A Little Corner of Freedom: Russian Nature Protection from Stalin to Gorbachev". University of California Press, 1999. ISBN 0520232135. On Google Books p. 415
4. ↑ Michael Overman, "Water". Doubleday, 1969, no ISBN. On Google Books ("Rerouting of Rivers", p. 183 and on)
5. ↑ Michael H. Glantz, "Creeping Environmental Problems and Sustainable Development in the Aral Sea...". ISBN 0521620864. On Google Books p. 174
6. ↑ Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Newsline, 02-09-30
7. ↑ Siberian River Project Revived 08-Sep-06
8. ↑ "In a Turn to the Past, Moscow Proposes To Reverse Siberia?s Rivers" Give & Take, 2003, vol.6, issue 2