2011 Issue №1

This article presents a method to assess the resistance of groundwater resources to anthropogenic impact and the fresh groundwater withdrawal as well as the results of such assessment for different territories of the country ranging from a federal district or a region to an artesian basin. The assessment was carried out with the help of the system of indicators and indexes of groundwater resource sustainability under the influence of groundwater withdrawal developed by the author.

This article offers a concept of an integral CHPP related anthropogenic impact zone (AIZ), representing a complex of industrial units, organizations and communications, which support the life cycle of a CHPP. The author conducted an analysis of the basic features of an integral CHPP AIZ and its elements. This concept may have a certain theoretical significance in solving optimizing environmental problems at the level of individual territories and the country in whole.

This article describes the condition of air in the Bogdino-Baskunchak industrial hub. The authors analyze the atmospheric pollutant emissions by the local enterprises.

The location of thermokarst lakes on the research territory in the permafrost zone of Western Siberia is identified with the use of satellite images. The statistical data analysis shows that the empirical laws of spatial distribution of the lake centers on the plane correspond to the uniform distribution law.

The critical water levels, rises and falls of the Pregolya River are determined on the basis of daily observations performed at the "Vityaz" museum vessel in 1996—2008. The observed phenomena reveal maximum frequency in autumn and winter.

This article aims to discuss the problematic aspects of the technogenesis impact on the river mouth areas (through the example of Baltic rivers). The author comes to a conclusion on the negative geoecological consequences of this process.

This article presents the results a of complex palaeogeographical study of Velikoye peat bog (the Šešupė River basin, the Kaliningrad region). The pollen analysis accompanied by radiocarbon dating, makes it possible to reconstruct the vegetation development, on the basis of which the climate changes in the South-east Baltic region over the Atlantic-Subatlantic periods of the Holocene can be tracked.

This article presents the evidence of the ancient origin of crystalline basement of the platform areas of the Earth developed as a result of global volcanism in the Hadean (more than 4 Ga). In the late Mesozoic-early Cenozoic, another outbreak of volcanism and dehydration of subsoils led to a significant subsidence (8—10 km) of continental masses and the formation of the World Ocean.