Английский язык

The environmental, economic and human degradation from the Aral Sea's desiccation have been wide-ranging and severe. Commercial fishing ceased in the early 1980s as native species, unable to adapt to rapidly changing conditions (chiefly rising salinity and loss of spawning and feeding areas), disappeared and the shoreline receded ten of kilometers from fishing towns and villages, hindering access to the sea by fishing boats. Commercial navigation across the Aral Sea also stopped as efforts to keep the increasingly long navigation channels open to the major port of Aralsk became too costly and difficult and were abandoned.

But damage has not been limited to the sea and settlements directly dependent on it. A region around the sea with a population in 1991 of nearly 4 mln has also suffered great damage and is considered an "ecological disaster zone". One of the most serious consequences has been the degradation of ecosystems in the Amu-Dar'ya and Syr-Dar'ya deltas owing to the huge reduction of flow through them and decline of groundwater levels in them associated with both reduced river discharge and the falling level of the Aral Sea.

Irrigated agriculture, practiced in the deltas of the Amu-Dar'ya and Syr-Dar'ya has been badly hurt by constrained water supplies resulting from greatly reduced river flow. Animal husbandry both in the deltas and in desert regions adjacent to the Aral Sea has been damaged by the diminishing productivity of pastures affected by desertification, dropping groundwater levels and replacement by inedible species of natural vegetation which is suitable for grazing.

Salt and dust blown from the increasingly large former sea bottom is carried as far as 500 km and settles over a considerable area adjacent to the Aral Sea. Natural vegetation and the crops in the Amu-Dar'ya delta to the South of the sea and pastures in the Ust-Yurt plateau to the West of the Aral Sea are suffering the most damage. Blowing salt and dust is also being implicated in increasingly high levels of respiratory illnesses, and even with throat and esophageal cancer.

The population of the area adjacent to the Aral Sea suffers a variety of health problems. Some of these are directly linked to the sea's recession e. g. respiratory and digestive afflictions, possibly even cancer, from inhalation and ingestion of blowing salt and dust, whereas others are results of environmental pollution associated with irrigation and "Third World" medical, health and hygienic conditions. Poor quality drinking water – much of which is taken directly from the Amu-Dar'ya and Syr-Dar'ya whose flow in their lower reaches is largely comprised of irrigation drainage, and from irrigation canals with minimal or no treatment – is a critical problem. Commonly, such water has high salt levels and contains pesticides, defoliants and fertilizers. Contaminated drinking water is implicated in high rates of typhoid, paratyphoid, viral hepatitis and dysentery, the incidents of which grew in the 1970s and 1980s. Because of this and other factors (e. g. high fertility, poor medical care, poor diet and lack of sewage systems) general mortality and morbidity and infant mortality and morbidity are the highest in the region constituting the former USSR.

EXERCISES:

1. State to what part of speech the following words belong according to their suffixes and translate them into Russian:

environmental, economic, degradation, commercial, rapidly, condition, chiefly, salinity, navigation, increasingly, costly, settlement, population, ecological, serious, consequence, reduction, agriculture, husbandry, region, adjacent, productivity, pasture, desertification, replacement, inedible, natural, vegetation, considerable, respiratory, variety, directly, recession, affliction, possibly, inhalation, ingestion, pollution, irrigation, hygienic, quality, largely, drainage, minimal, commonly, factor, general, mortality, morbidity.

2. Find in the text the English equivalents for the following words and word-combinations:

быстро меняющиеся условия, исчезать, ущерб, поселок, зависеть, население, серьезные последствие, животноводство, заболевания дыхательных путей, примыкающий к морю район, загрязнение окружающей среды, орошение, плохое качество питьевой воды, минимальная обработка, вода содержит пестициды и дефолианты, зараженная питьевая вода, плохое питание, высокая рождаемость, общая смертность.

3. Make questions of the following statements. Begin each question with the words given in brackets:

1. The population in the area adjacent to the Aral Sea suffers a variety of health problems. (What problems..?)