Kielder Water

Britain’s man-made lake is Kielder Water just south of the Scottish border. Covering 1086 hectares, Kielder water is over three-quarters the area of Lake Windermere, England’s largest natural lake. One and a half million trees were felled to make way for it, and a hamlet, several buildings and the main valley road were drowned by the rising water. Why was this remote Northumberland valley chosen?

The North-East of England region has the same geographical problem as that which faces the country as a whole: the highest rainfall is in the north and west of the region while the highest demand for water is in the south and east. In 1981, the North-East used 1050 million litres of water a day, a 15 percent increase on 1971. The water resources of the region amounted to 1255 million litres a day. In order to meet likely increased demand, the Northumbrian Water Authority had to build more storage capacity. The best site for dam construction was chosen at the narrowest point in the North Tyne Valley. The site is close to large deposits of impermeable glacial boulder clay as well as sand, gravel and a hard igneous rock called whinstone which were suitable materials to build a dam.

It took four and a half years to build the giant dam which is 1140 metres long and 52 meters high. The valley started to flood in Decemder 1980 and the reservoir was complete and officially opened by the Queen in May 1982.

Kielder Water will supply up to 1130 million litres of water a day, enough for the current water demands of the whole region. Kielder is a regional scheme because its water will be available to almost all parts of the north-east. The biggest consumers are the industrial conurbations on the coast.

Water supply is the most important function of Kielder Water but it was built with multipurpose use in mind. Recreation is one of them. The Kielder area is being developed as one of the north-east’s leading tourist attractions. Accommodation in the form of caravan and tent sites, forest cabins and outdoor activity centres have been built. Car parks, picnic places and viewpoints have been provided along the southern shore beside the new C200 road. In the Kielder Water Visitor Centre there is an exhibition, and specialist information for tourists is available. There are also restaurant facilities. More organized recreational development has also taken place: fishing, water sports, boat trips, pony trekking around the reservoir and through the surrounding forest. Bakethin reservoir has been set aside as a nature reserve. Two turbo-generators are being installed at the dam to produce hydro-electricity.

Within the space of ten years, a remote and beautiful Northumberland valley has been transformed. Opportunities for employment have been improved for the local people. An important new tourist centre has been established and the demand for water in the north-east has been safeguarded into the next century.

Lesson 5. On environment.

In the last half of the twentieth century, people have become more conscious of their environment than ever before. We talk about the environment and worry about ecology. Popular news magazines often devote whole sections to discussions of environmental issues. But what are we really talking about when we use words like ENVIRONMENT, ECOLOGY or ECOSYSTEM?

In the broadest sense, our ENVIRONMENT can be defined as our surroundings; it is made up of all the physical, social and cultural aspects of our world that affect our growth, our being and our way of living.

Environment influences people in their decisions in three main ways:

• through the influences of climate,

• through the influences of landscape,

• through the distribution of resources.

Here are some examples:

• Hot climates influence clothing and housing style and may be good for holidays but make work very tiring. Cold climates make heating essential, require special clothes and special machines that do not freeze, and mean that food must be imported from more favoured areas.

• Hill and mountain ranges make communications, building houses, and farming difficult, but attracts tourists.

• River floodplains are flat and often fertile, but will flood and soils may be waterlogged.

• Deep fertile soils produce the best crop yields.

• Timber is important for fuel, building, paper making, etc.

• Raw materials from the rocks such as coal, iron ore, oil, etc. are used by industry.

• Earthquake and volcanic regions are extremely dangerous.

The same may be said about coastal storms, heavy snowfalls, river floodings, drought and so on and so forth.

Just as humans interact with their environment, so do the other animals and plants. The study of these relationships between organisms, whether animal or plant, and their environments, is a science known as ECOLOGY. Ecological relationships are complex but naturally balanced “webs of life”. Disrupting the natural ecology of a community of organisms may have negative results (although this is not always so). For example, the filling in or pollution of coastal marshlands may disrupt the natural ecology of such areas. As a result, fish spawning grounds may be destroyed and the food supply of some marine animals and migratory birds could be greatly depleted. The end product is the destruction of valuable plant and animal life.

ECOSYSTEM is a contraction of ECOLOGICAL SYSTEM. An ecosystem refers to a community of organisms and the relationships of those organisms to their environment. An ecosystem is dynamic in that its various parts are always in flux. For instance, plants grow, rain falls, animals eat and soil matures – all changing the environment of a particular ecosystem. Since each member of the ecosystem belongs to the environment of every other part of that system, any change in one alters the environment for all the others. And as those components react to the alteration, they in turn continue to transform the environment for the others.

The concept of an ecosystem can be applied at almost any scale, in a wide variety of geographic locations, and under all environmental conditions where life is possible. Hence, a farm pond, a grass-covered field, a marsh, a forest, or a portion of a desert can be viewed as an ecosystem. Even the Earth itself may be considered one large ecosystem. Ecosystems are found wherever there is an exchange of materials among living organisms and functional relationships between the organisms and their natural environment. Ecosystems are open systems with movement of energy and material across their boundaries.

Since human beings first walked the earth, they have affected each ecosystem they have inhabited. People use the environment, but they also can overuse or abuse it. The result of people’s violation of the balance is soil erosion, intensified by water and wind erosion, water and air pollution, dying of forests desertification, damage of the ozone layer, the greenhouse effect, etc. That’s why the main thing nowadays is to manage the environment, to control pollution, to preserve the wildscape and to live in harmony with physical environments.

Soil erosion.

There are many people who overuse the land. Farmers try to get as much as possible from the soil. This can lead to erosion by water and wind.

Rain splashes on bare soil. This clogs the surface pores with tiny lumps of splashed soil and prevents water soaking through the surface. The result is that water flows over the soil surface making small channels called rills, or larger channels called gullies.

The problems of water erosion are:

• the water running over the surface does not sink into the soil to be stored against periods of drought,

• the most fertile part of the soil (the topsoil) is lost.

Wind erosion is most serious when the wind can blow over level, bear dry soil, especially soil that is not bound into clods by humus and clays. Sandy, peaty soils (preferred by market gardeners, for example) and those where farmers add little organic matter are most liable to blow away.

The rush by farmers to convert grassland to arable fields has resulted in worsening soil erosion in some parts of Britain. One-fifth of the country’s arable land is in danger of excessive erosion. Arable fields and market gardens are most prone to damage, because they are bare or only sparsely covered for a large part of the year. The main thing to cut erosion is to put the area back under grass, though this is uneconomic for farmers. Some researches are being made in this field. Scientists are trying to develop a special tillage system and are looking at planting of hedgerows as protection against erosion.

Pollution.

When examining our effect upon our environment, we can-not ignore the problem of pollution. But what exactly is POLLUTION? First, there are many varieties, including air pol-lution, water pollution, noise pollution, visual pollution and solid waste pollution. Is amount considered in defining pollution? Pol-lution does occur, however, when more foreign material is put into a system than the system can tolerate; it is the accumulation, to level intolerable to the ecosystem, of undesirable elements in any one of the diverse aspects of the physical environment. In the strictest sense, there is natural pollution (lime, iron or sulfur in water supplies, smoke from forest fires, or dust from the eruption of volcanoes). But in our current usage, POLLUTION includes those wastes in the water, air or other aspects of the environment for which humans are responsible.

Air pollution is caused by the invisible output of gases such as sulfur dioxide from power stations and plants, vehicle exhausts and other sources. As gases become dissolved in raindrops they are converted to acids. Acid rains then fall. They kill leaves of the trees and they also release metals (like aluminum) which are in the soil, and when these metals reach lakes and rivers they can kill fish and other water life. If dissolved aluminum reaches public water supplies it can cause severe illnesses in people.

Rivers may be also polluted directly by waste water and their discharges (called “effluents”). In many countries people pour their sewage directly into their rivers. At seas there is considerable pollution because people dump waste into sea thinking it will disappear. But the approach of “out of sight, out of mind” just shows an ignorance of the coastal waves, tides and currents. The severe beach contamination from wrecked oil tankers or oil-well disasters bear witnesses to see pollution as one of the greatest risks of all.

Preserving the “wildscape”.

Britain’s natural environment – countryside and wildlife in particular is under pressures. Very little of countryside is natural; most has been modified by generations. Today most people agree that it is important to preserve the wild species as much as possible. People also have more time to go out and enjoy the countryside. But successful wildlife conservation depends on understanding nature as an ecosystem.

Visiting the countryside is one of the most popular forms of leisure today. Over there/quarters of the population (37 million people) spend at least one day visiting the countryside each year. However, most people prefer to visit areas where wildlife is allowed to flourish. They do not want to walk through near parks or through an industrial farming landscape.

Since World War Two many state and private bodies have concerned themselves with conservation. One of the best-known private bodies conserving land and historic buildings is the National Trust. People pay to join this charity, which uses the money to buy land and buildings “for the benefit of the nation”. There are also many special conservation organizations, for example, Forestry Commission which opens its forests to the public.

Among the ways of managing the countryside in Britain there are National parks, Forest parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, etc.

National parks cover about 9 per cent of England and Wales. They were established in 1949, the intention being to

• preserve the national landscape

• protect wildlife and places of interest

• maintain the traditional landscapes

• control and manage developments

• provide access to the general public

• provide facilities and information for the visitors.

Most of the lands in the national parks is part of the “wildscape” of Britain. It belongs to landowners and farmers, the Forestry Commission, the Ministry of Defence, water authorities, and the National Trust.

Motorways have made national parks accessible. About one-third of Britain’s population is within day-tripping distance of the Peak District National Park. More than 8 million visits are made to the Peak District every year, which can lead to serious traffic problems.

Scotland’s equivalent of national parks are called national scenic areas.

Forests opened to the public by the Forestry Commission usually have information boards, picnic sites, marked footpaths and car parks. The Forest parks are tourists areas on a larger scale and include camping and caravan sites. The New Forest is the most visited forest park, with millions of visitors a year. A new Commission venture is the building of holiday cabins in some of its forests.

As well as establishing national parks, the government has encouraged a range of conservation measures. Local authorities are increasingly involved in managing conservation areas. Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) have been designated in several parts of the country. They are not wildscape, like the national parks, but in coastal and farmland areas. Some small sites are of special environmental interest. Within forty kilometres of the Cairngorm mountains in the Highlands of Scotland are over twenty protected scientific sites termed SSSIs (Sites of Special Scientific Interest). The most scenic coasts are known as Heritage Coast.

The latest conservation/leisure area is the Country Park. Many are recognized by the Countryside Commission, the government body which oversees conservation. The parks were set up by local authorities using government grants. They are small, and many are in densely populated areas. They are located in a variety of natural and man-made environments.

GLOSSARY:

abuse злоупотреблять

access доступ

acid кислота, кислотный

acid rains кислотные дожди

arable пахотный

be liable to подлежать, быть

подверженным чему-либо

pollute загрязнять

pollution загрязнение

preserve сохранять, консервировать

preservation сохранение

reserve заповедник

sewage нечистоты, сточные воды

sink погружаться, опускаться,

тонуть

site место, площадка

picnic site площадка для пикника

camping and caravan site место для стоянки лагеря,

трейлера и т. д.

soak впитывать, промачивать,

промокать

soil почва

fertile soils плодородные почвы

sandy soils песчаные почвы

peaty soils торфяные почвы

surface поверхность

tillage system система обработки земли

timber лес, лесоматериал, древесина

vehicle exhausts выхлопные газы

violate нарушать

waste, n отходы, отбросы

wildlife живая природа, дикие

животные, птицы, рыбы

в естественных условиях

wild species виды животных, птиц, рыб,

растений, и т. д.

ASSIGNMENTS AND EXERCISES:

38

conserve сохранять, беречь, сберегать

conservation сохранение, охрана природы

contaminate загрязнять, заражать

beach contamination загрязнение пляжей

countryside сельская местность

convert превращать, обращать,

переводить

discharges = effluents сточные воды

dissolve растворять, растворяться

drought засуха

earthquake землетрясение

ecology экология

ecosystem экосистема

environment окружающая среда

recycling рециркуляция отходов

erosion эрозия

soil erosion эрозия почв

water erosion водная эрозия

wind erosion ветровая эрозия

excessive erosion чрезмерная, сильная эрозия

cut erosion остановить эрозию

fuel топливо, горючее

footpath тропа, дорога

gully овраг, канава

humus гумус, перегной

invisible невидимый

market-garden(ing) огород (огородничество)

organic matter органическое вещество

output выброс

overuse чрезмерно, слишком долго

использовать, злоупотреблять

1. Study the texts on environment and the glossary. Be ready to discuss the texts.

2. Answer the questions:

1. Explain the terms ENVIRONMENT, ECOLOGY, ECOSYSTEM.

2. In what ways does the environment influence people? Give examples.

3. Explain the relationships of organisms in an ecosystem.

4. What kind of objects can be called ecosystems? Why?

5. What happens when people violate the balance of an ecosystem?

6. Describe the process of soil erosion. What are its results? What are the ways to prevent soil erosion?

7. What are the problems of wind erosion? What soils are most liable to blowing away?

8. Explain the mechanisms of acid rains’ formation. What is dangerous about them?

9. What are the ways of water pollution? Why do people in some countries dump waste at seas? Give the reasons of severe beach contamination.

10. Why is British natural environment under pressures? Is much of it natural? Why is it so very important to preserve wild species as much as possible?

11. What does successful wildlife conservation depend on?

12. What are the ways of managing the countryside in Britain? What bodies (state or private) are involved in wildlife conservation? Do ordinary people take part in it?

13. Explain the difference between National parks, Forest parks, AONBs and Country parks.

14. Speak about National parks: purpose of establishing, owners of the land of NP, necessary facilities, etc.

3. Translate into English:

1. В последнюю половину двадцатого века тема охраны окружающей среды стала одной из наиболее актуальных.

2. Нарушение хрупкого баланса экосистемы может привести к непредсказуемым последствиям.

3. Экосистема – это динамичное образование, и изменение одного из компонентов влечет изменение всей системы в целом.

4. Эрозия почв, загрязнение воздуха и воды, нарушение озонового слоя, парниковый эффект и др. – результаты вредного воздействия человечества на окружающую среду.

5. Чтобы сохранить “дикую” природу, в Великобритании создаются национальные парки, лесопарки, заповедники и т. д.

6. В любом национальном парке можно найти специально оборудованные площадки для пикников, палаток, трейлеров, пешеходные тропы и другие условия для посетителей.

7. Одна из главных задач человечества сегодня – научиться регулировать отношения человека и окружающей его среды и жить в гармонии с природой.

4. Read the text about the Lake District National Park.