Geography and Climate

           The Geographical Position of Ukraine

                                     

Ukraine is situated in the eastern part of Europe. It borders on Russia in the east, Belorussia in the north, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova in the west. Ukraine is washed by the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea in the south.

The area of Ukraine is more than 603,000 sq km. The most part of its area is flat. The mountains in Ukraine cover only 5 per cent its territory. There are the Crimean Mountains in the south and the Carpathians in the west. Goverla is the highest peak of the Ukrainian Carpathians. It is 2,061 metres high.

The territory of our country has a variety of landscapes as it lies in three main zones: mixed forests, forest-steppes and steppes. There are large tracts of forest in the north, vast steppes in the south.

The flora and fauna of our country are extremely rich. Almost all kinds of animals and birds can be found on the territory of our vast land.

The nature of Ukraine is especially beautiful due to a number of rivers and lakes. There are 131 rivers in Ukraine. The longest rivers are the Dniester, the Donets, the Bug. The Dnieper is the main river in Ukraine. It divides the country into Right-bank and Left-bank areas.

Along the whole length of the Dnieper there are the artificial seas with the hydro-electric power-stations. The rivers of Ukraine are navigable.

There are more than three hundred cities and towns in Ukraine. The biggest of them are the industrial centres such as Kharkiv, Donetsk, Dniepropetrovsk, Lviv. Odessa, Mikolayiv, Kherson, Kerch are the most important ports of Ukraine.

The capital of Ukraine is Kyiv. It is an administrative, industrial, scientific and cultutal centre.

Ukraine is rich in mineral resources: coal, oil, gas, different ores. Some of them are of industrial importance. The rich deposits of iron and coal are in the south of Ukraine. The deposits of oil and gas are in the Ukrainean Carpathians. The different mineral waters are one more wealth of Ukraine.

Ukraine is a developed industrial country. It has metallurgical and heavy industries, machine building and ship building industries. Ukraine produces up-to-date instruments, electronic microscopes, synthetic diamonds as well as consumer goods.

Ukraine is an agricultural country of stending reputation. Its soil is fertile. Its climate is good for cultivating different agricultural plants.

The country is now through a period of difficult times. It is changing its economical system. Ukraine is building its new economy.

The geographical position of Ukraine is favourable for maintaining close economic relations with many European countries.

                 

                  The Climate of Ukraine 

The climate of Ukraine is temperate continental. Ukraine occupies the vast territory and this is the reason why the continental climate changes from one region of the country to another. The climate of the Western regions is mild, while the climate of the Eastern ones is sharp. But nevertheless the climate in the most part of Ukraine is continental and not so mild.

The average temperature in January is 7 degrees below zero. The average temperature in July is 17 degrees above zero.

During the last decades a man has greatly interfered in nature. A number of man-made seas are now in the basin of the Dnieper river. Of course, they influenced the climate, and it changed in some way. But still the winters are frosty. Sometimes the temperature is 20-25 degrees below zero. Though the weather varies greatly from year to year. For example, sometimes it often rains throughout a year and sometimes it is very dry.

The highest rainfall is observed in the western part of Ukraine, in the Carpathians. This is the wettest place in Ukraine. The rains are few on the coastline of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. On the main part of the country rain falls enough to cultivate different agricultural plants.

The winds are strong and occur often in the central part of Ukraine in the steppe zone. Sometimes sandy storms happen there.

The climate of the Crimea differs from that on the main territory. The climate here is subtropical. The Crimean mountains stop cold winds from the north. The winter temperature is about 4 degrees above zero and the average temperature in summer is about 22 degrees above zero. There are a lot of evergreen plants in the Crimea. This is a favourite place for rest because of the climate and nature.

Comparing the climate in Ukraine with the climate in other European countries we may say that summers are hotter in Ukraine and winters are colder.

It may be interesting for you to compare the climate of Ukraine with that of Great Britain. Though Ukraine lies further southern than Great Britain its continental climate determines the differences existed between two countries. While the meadows are green in Great Britain the whole year round and sheep and cattle can find food there in winters as well as in other seasons, the cattle in the vast steppes in the southern Ukraine can't find it. The fogs are not so frequent in our country as in Great Britain. Sometimes they happen in autumn and spring after the long periods of rains, especially if the temperature rises quickly. Due to the Great Britain's geographical position the winter temperature in England is on the average of 10 degrees higher than in our country. But in summer there are more hot days in Ukraine than in England.

                

                 Pollution in Ukraine

  Pollution is the contamination of the environment, including air, water, and land, with undesirable amounts of material or energy. Such contamination originates from human activities that create waste products. An industrial and intensively farmed country, Ukraine contains some of the most polluted landscapes in Eastern Europe. Pollution became evident in Ukraine with industrial development in the 19th century.Air pollution is especially severe in many of the heavily industrialized cities and towns of southeastern Ukraine, notably in Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia. Coal-using industries, such as metallurgical coke-chemical plants, steel mills, and thermal power plants are major sources of high levels of uncontrolled emissions of sulphur dioxide, dust, unburned hydrocarbons, and other harmful substances. Other Ukrainian cities with major chronic air pollution problems include Kyiv, Komunarsk, Makiivka and Odesa.
Over one-third of the emissions into the atmosphere originate, from automobile transport. That source, which attains overwhelming proportions in cities with little industry, such as Uzhhorod, Yalta, Poltava and Khmelnytskyi, is aggravated by the use of leaded gasoline and inefficient engines as well as a lack of catalytic converters.
Almost all surface waters of Ukraine belong to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov basins. The high population density, heavy industrial development, and relatively low freshwater endowment of those basins, and the low governmental priority placed upon environmental protection until very recently, have given rise to chronic and serious levels of water pollution throughout Ukraine. The Dnister and the Danube are included among the most polluted bodies of water in the territory of the former Soviet Union. Hundreds of small rivers supply water for three-quarters of the villages and half of Ukraine's cities. Widespread fear is growing in Ukraine that a substantial fraction of those water arteries are so polluted as to pose fatal health risks to the people who depend on them. About half of the chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides applied in the fields are washed off into rivers. Moreover, surface runoff from industrial territories is highly contaminated.
One of the areas suffering most from serious and chronic coastal water pollution is the sea of Azov. That shallow and previously biologically rich and commercially productive body of water has experienced serious problems of industrial and municipal wastewater contamination and increased levels of salinity since the early 1970s. A primary cause of the sea's ecological deterioration has been the diversion for purposes of irrigation (up to 80 per cent) of fresh, but not necessarily pure, water inflow from the Don and the Kuban rivers. As a result the sea's salinity has increased by more than 40 percent since the 1950s. Despite repeated warnings and special government antipollution resolutions, the conditions in the Sea of Azov continue to deteriorate.