Africa has a large number of lakes and rivers. However, they are distributed very unevenly: some regions abound in moisture from water bodies, others suffer from constant droughts and water shortages.

Rivers of the Atlantic Ocean basin

Seven African rivers belong to the basin Atlantic Ocean are the Nile, Niger, Senegal, Congo, Kasai, Lualaba and the Orange River.

Nile- the longest river in the world, its length is about 6700 km. In ancient times, the floods of the Nile served as the only opportunity for the Egyptians to increase soil fertility. The floods of the Nile stopped in the 20th century due to the massive construction of a hydroelectric power station on this river.

The second largest river in the Atlantic Ocean is Congo. The length of the river is 4700 km. The Congo is considered the deepest river in Africa. The area of ​​its basin exceeds 4 million km3.

In the waters of the Congo there are many unique species of fish: tilapia, freshwater herring, tiger fish, barbel. The Congo is the only river in the world that crosses the equator twice.

River Niger- the third largest African river. In the upper reaches of the Niger there are a large number of waterfalls. Thanks to the waters of Niger, arid territories are irrigated. Niger floods during the rainy season, often in the summer.

Rivers of the Indian Ocean basin

The rivers that belong to the basin indian ocean are Zambezi and Limpopo. The Limpopo River flows through the territory South Africa. Despite the fact that the river is short (1700 km) and shallow, it is the only water source for a large number of the population of this region.

Part of Limpopo is navigable, which has a positive effect on the development of fisheries in countries such as Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The Zambezi River is the fourth longest river in Africa.

Its total length reaches 2500 km. The river flows through states such as Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique, providing these arid countries with water.

The highlight of the Zambezi River is Victoria Falls, which is considered the most beautiful waterfall in the world.

Lakes of Africa

There are many freshwater lakes in Africa. The largest of them is Lake Victoria, named after the famous English queen. Lake Victoria is located in East Africa, its area is 68 thousand km 2.

The average depth of the lake is 40 m. The lake is a real oasis for the inhabitants of this part of the continent. More than 30 million people live around the lake.

Lake Victoria is navigable, locals engaged in fishing activities. The second largest African lake is Lake Tanganyika, located in Central Africa.

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The area of ​​the Indian Ocean exceeds 76 million square kilometers - it is the third largest water area in the world.

From the western part of the Indian Ocean, Africa is comfortably located, from the East - the Sunda Islands and Australia, in the south sparkles Antarctica and in the north is captivating Asia. The Hindustan Peninsula divides the northern part of the Indian Ocean into two parts - the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.

Borders

The Cape Meridian coincides with the border between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and the line that connects the Malaaka Peninsula with the islands of Java, Sumatra and runs along the Southeast Cape meridian south of Tasmania is the border between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Geographical position on the map

Indian Ocean Islands

Here are such famous islands as the Maldives, Seychelles, Madagascar, Cocos Islands, Laccadive, Nicobar, the Chagos Archipelago and Christmas Island.

It is impossible not to mention the group of Mascarene Islands, which are located to the east of Madagascar: Mauritius, Reunion, Rodrigues. And on the south side of the island are Croe, Prince Edward, Kerguelen with.

Brethren

Connects the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea with the Strait of Maoakka, between the Indian Ocean and Java Sea the Sunda Strait and the Strait of Lombok act as connective tissue.

From the Gulf of Oman, which is located in the northwest of the Arabian Sea, you can get to the Persian Gulf by sailing through the Strait of Hormuz.
The road to the Red Sea is opened by the Gulf of Aden, which is located a little to the south. The Mozambique Channel separates Madagascar from the African continent.

Basin and list of inflowing rivers

The major rivers of Asia belong to the Indian Ocean basin, such as:

• Indus, which flows into the Arabian Sea,
• Irrawaddy,
• salween,
• Ganges with Brahmaputra going to the Bay of Bengal,
• Euphrates and Tigris, which merge a little above the point of confluence with the Persian Gulf,
• The Limpopo and Zambezi, the largest rivers in Africa, also flow into it.

The greatest depth (maximum - almost 8 kilometers) of the Indian Ocean was measured in the Yavan (or Sunda) deep trench. The average depth of the ocean is almost 4 kilometers.

It is washed by many rivers.

Under the influence of seasonal changes in monsoon winds, surface currents in the north of the ocean change.

The source of the river is located at an altitude of about 5300 m in the southwest of the Tibetan Plateau, on the northern slope of Mount Garing-boche, about 40 km north of Lake Manasarovar. It flows under the name of Sindhu to the confluence with the Gar Dzangbo River at the village of Largmar, where it receives the name Indus. At Hyderabad, located 150 km from the sea, the Indus Delta begins, which has an area of ​​30 thousand km? (the seventh largest in the world) and the length of the sea coast is 250 km. The river is divided into 11 main branches, but the total number of channels in the Indus Delta cannot be accurately determined, because each flood changes the entire pattern. In the mountainous area, the Indus is fed mainly by melting snow and glaciers, where the flow is about 220 km?/year, with an average water discharge of about 7000 m?/s. In the lower part of the basin, the river is replenished with water from monsoon rains, which leads to spring and summer floods. During dry periods, the Indus in the lower reaches may dry up and not reach the Arabian Sea. The area of ​​the Indus basin is 970 thousand square kilometers, which makes it the twelfth in the world in this indicator.

Ganges

One of the most full-flowing (3rd place in the world in terms of water content after the Amazon and the Congo) and longest (2700 km) rivers of South Asia. It originates in the Western Himalayas from the Gangotri glacier in the state of Uttarakhand, flows southeast, crossing the Indo-Gangetic plain in northern India, and flows into the Bay of Bengal, forming, together with the Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers, the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta (mainly in Bangladesh). ), part of which is covered by the forests of the Sundarbans. The area of ​​the river basin is 1,060,000 km². The Ganges basin is the largest in area in South Asia. Although the Ganges is shorter than the Indus and the Brahmaputra, it surpasses them in the size of its basin, which occupies an area of ​​1,060,000 km², and together with the Brahmaputra basin, with which the Ganges forms a common delta, 1,643,000 km². Part of the river's nutrition is rain, due to the moisture that the southwestern monsoons and tropical cyclones (in the lower reaches) bring from July to October, and part is snow, due to the Himalayan snows melting from April to June. In December-January, very little precipitation falls in the river basin.

Tiger

River in Turkey and Iraq. The length is about 1850 km, the basin area is 375 thousand km 2. It starts on the Armenian Highlands in the Eastern Taurus in eastern Turkey, crosses the Jezira plateau and a significant part of the Mesopotamian. Merging with the Euphrates River near the city of El Qurna (Iraq), it forms the Shatt al-Arab River, which flows into the Persian Gulf. The main tributaries - the Big and Small Zab, Diyala, Kerkhe (reaches the Tigris during the flood) - flow from the left. The food is snow-rain, with a spring flood (the largest runoff is in April). When floods coincide on the Tigris and its tributaries in the Mesopotamian lowland, catastrophic floods occur. The average flow of water near Baghdad is about 1240 m 3 /s, below a significant part of the water is taken for irrigation and lost in riverine swamps. In the middle and lower reaches, an oasis stretches along the river.

TOPIC 2. Eurasia

§ 47. Rivers of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, internal flow. lakes

Remember:

1. Name and show on the map the rivers of Eurasia known to you flow into the seas of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
2. At what time of the year is the most rainfall on the coast of the Pacific and Indian Oceans? Explain why.

Basin rivers Pacific Ocean(Fig. 122). Nearly all the rivers of Eurasia in the Pacific basin are dominated by rainfall. In summer, the monsoons bring heavy rains, which cause violent river floods. In the equatorial zone (in the south of Indochina and in most of the Sunda Islands), the rivers receive rich and uniform rainfall throughout the year. The largest rivers of the Pacific Ocean are the Amur, the Yellow River, the Yangtze and the Mekong.

Amur freezes in winter, but due to a little snowy winter, the spring flood on it is small. But in summer, during the monsoon rains, the river and its tributaries overflow widely.

The Huang He (Ch Zhovta River) begins in the northeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau, flows in deep gorges and feeds mainly as a result of the summer melting of mountain snow. Further, making a big bend to the north, it flows through an arid area, crosses the Lesova Plateau (plateau) and enters the Great Chinese Plain. Here the river is fed by the summer monsoon rains.

The loess is easily washed out, and the Huang He carries water cloudy from yellow silt. The river bed was gradually filled with silt, as a result of which it became higher than the adjacent low-lying plain. In order to protect the area from flooding, the river was surrounded by coastal dams in ancient times. During the summer rains, when its level rose significantly, it often broke through dams and flooded fields and villages, causing great disaster. The Huang He sometimes changed its direction, deviating hundreds of kilometers to the side. Flowing into the Yellow Sea, the river forms a delta, which increases annually by an average of 300 m. In winter, it freezes. Not suitable for shipping.

Rice. 122. Basins of oceans and internal runoff

• Explain why.

The Yangtze ("Blue River") is the largest river in all of Eurasia (5800 km). It originates in the Tibetan Plateau and in the upper reaches is fed with water as a result of the summer melting of mountain snow and glaciers. The river cuts through mountain ranges and flows quickly. Having descended to the plain, it feeds on the water of monsoon rains and overflows widely in summer. The high-water Yangtze during the year rushes into the Skhidno-Chinese Sea (ill. 123). The river is navigable, even ships can navigate along it 1200 km from the sea.

Rice. 123. Changes in water level in the Yangtze River during the year

The Mekong River also originates in the Tibetan Plateau, not far from the Yangtze River. Then it flows along the Indochina Peninsula into the South China Sea. A large delta formed at the mouth of the river.

Rivers of the Indian Ocean basin. In the rivers that flow into the Indian Ocean, the food is mainly rain. The rivers that begin in the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas, except for rain, are fed by the melting of mountain glaciers. The large rivers Indus and Ganges with the Brahmaputra belong to the Indian Ocean basin.

The Indus River originates in the Tibetan Plateau (at an altitude of 5.3 km). The main mountain tributaries flow into it, and it flows further into the arid lowlands, feeding numerous irrigation canals and losing a lot of water to evaporation. In summer, during the monsoon rains and the melting of mountain snow and glaciers, the Indus floods widely, and in winter it becomes very shallow. The river flows into the Arabian Sea.

The Ganges River begins in the Himalayas (Fig. 124). Then it slowly flows along the lowlands along the Himalayas, taking in some turbulent tributaries and giving part of its waters to irrigate the fields. The river has a mixed glacier-rain supply, and during a flood its level rises by an average of 10-12 m. The Ganges is one of the most full-flowing rivers the globe. It flows into the Bay of Bengal, forming a huge swampy delta along with another large river, the Brahmaputra. This river begins in the Tibetan Plateau, not far from the Indus, but flows in the other direction, bypassing the Himalayas from the east.

Rice. 124. Ganges Delta

Rivers and lakes of internal flow basins. Areas that do not have flow into the oceans include: a) the Caspian Sea basin, which occupies a significant part of the East European, or Russian, plain, Ural mountains and the Caucasus; b) almost the entire middle part of Eurasia (the Turan lowland and the mountains and plateaus located to the east of it); c) the interior regions of the Iranian Plateau and the Arabian Plateau.

The Caspian Sea has lost its connection with the oceans, and now it is more of a drainless salt lake on the globe. Its level is 28 m below the level of the World Ocean.

It flows into the Caspian Sea along the East European Plain. big river Volga, and from the Ural Mountains - a long, but shallow Ural. They feed mainly on water formed as a result of spring snowmelt.

In internal parts Eurasia is a large expanse occupied by deserts and semi-deserts, almost devoid of a river network. In the place of many rivers that once flowed here, only dry channels remained, which are filled with water after rains and then quickly dry out (for example, wadis on the Arabian Peninsula). Large rivers flow from neighboring mountains. There they are fed by the summer melting of mountain snow and glaciers, as well as from groundwater that seeps underground at the foot of the mountains. They fall into drainless lakes or dry up and disappear into the sands.

These rivers include the Syr Darya, flowing from the Tien Shan, and the abounding Amu Darya, which originates in the Pamir and Hindu Kush mountains. They carry their waters through the deserts into a large but not very deep salty lake called the Aral Sea. These rivers flood in the summer, just when water is most needed for crops, and therefore their waters are widely used to irrigate fields.

Lakes. As in North America, there are a lot of lakes in Eurasia. They are unevenly spaced. Many lakes in the north-west of Eurasia are located among the rocks and hills in depressions, connected to each other and to the Baltic Sea by rapids rivers. The largest of them are Ladoga and Onega. their hollows were formed as a result of slow subsidence earth's crust. The ancient glacier plowed out the hollows of tens of thousands of lakes.

Where the climate is dry and hot, lakes are usually few and have salty water.

Some lakes in the mountains are located in the depressions of the earth's crust. Lake Baikal is located in the deepest depression. Another cluster of lakes in the foothills of the Alps. their basins are formed by glaciers that descended from the mountains, and in many places are surrounded by ridges of glacial sediment. Mountain rivers flow through the lakes. The largest is Lake Geneva (ill. 125).

The remains of the ancient sea basin are the Caspian and Aral sea-lakes. In the south-east there are non-freezing lake Issyk-Kul, lake Balkhash.

Lakes are of great economic importance. A significant number of them - Baikal, Ladoga, Onega, etc. - contain large reserves of pure fresh water, convenient for shipping.

Rice. 125. Lake Geneva

Practice 10 (continued)

Designation on the contour map of the names of the main geographical objects Eurasia

Mark on a contour map using an atlas.

Rivers: Rhine, Danube, Dnieper, Volga, Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Amur, Huang He, Yangtze, Mekong, Ganges, Indus, Euphrates, Tigris;

lakes: Caspian Sea, Geneva, Ladoga, Baikal, Dead Sea.

Questions and tasks

1. name common features rivers of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
2. Specify the features of the relief and climate of Eurasia contributed to the formation of internal runoff basins.
3. Describe one of the lakes of Eurasia according to the plan. Explain its importance in human economic activity.
4. Give comparative characteristic the Yangtze and Huang He rivers.

Working with map and atlas

Apply to contour map boundaries of all river basins of the Eurasian continent. Sign.

Explorer Page

Prepare a presentation on one of the topics: “Permafrost and economic activity person", " Environmental problems rivers of Eurasia”, using various sources of information.

Interesting fact

Baikal (in translation means “Rich Lake”) (Fig. 126) stretches from northeast to southwest for 636 km. The largest width of the lake is 79 km, its area is 31.5 thousand km 2. Baikal is the eighth largest lake in the world. This is the deepest lake on earth. Its depth is 1642 m.

Rice. 126. Lake Baikal