Scientists from the Geography Department at Lomonosov Moscow State University, the Water Problems Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Arctic Research Center complied a publication titled Dangerous Exogenic Processes in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area, as per the university’s press service. 

The atlas features data about the scale of regional exogenic processes, created by air, water, fluctuating temperatures, ice and snow. The book contains detailed maps of various types of exogenic processes, including cryogenic processes, thermal erosion, coastal and ravine erosion, and deltaic processes. Moreover, the atlas – monograph describes factors contributing to these processes, their manifestations at watersheds, in valleys and river estuaries.

A separate section of the atlas dealing with processes in river estuaries includes a map evaluating possible water level fluctuations in river estuaries near the Gulf of Ob. The authors focused on erosion-prone areas near the Salekhard – Novy Urengoi highway and at gas fields, as well as their origin.

“Some of the unique maps in the atlas have never been published before. Among them are maps of extreme horizontal deformations of rivers in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area. They show areas where river shorelines had receded most actively in the first quarter of the 21st century. These sections are mostly linked with the largest local rivers, specifically, the Ob, Nadym, Pur and Taz. The Ob River’s shoreline recedes as at a rate of six to ten meters per year, and maximum erosion levels in the Greater Ob area on the border with the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area reach 40 meters per year,” said Sergei Chalov, Head of the Makaveyev Scientific Research Laboratory for Soil Erosion and Riverbed Processes, affiliated with the Geography Department at Lomonosov Moscow State University.  

The data is based on network observations and satellite imagery, contributed by the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet) over the past few years, as well as onsite observations by specialists from the Geography Department at Lomonosov Moscow State University in Yamal throughout the 1990s.