Environmental problems of ancient agricultural civilizations. History of the development of urban systems Environmental problems in ancient cities

11.3. Cities and nature

Environmental problems of cities

It is often believed that the environmental condition of cities has noticeably deteriorated in recent decades as a result of the rapid development of industrial production. But this is a misconception. Environmental problems of cities arose along with their birth. The cities of the ancient world were characterized by a very crowded population. For example, in Alexandria the population density in the 1st–2nd centuries. reached 760 people, in Rome - 1,500 people per 1 hectare (for comparison, let’s say that in the center of modern New York no more than 1 thousand people live per 1 hectare). The width of streets in Rome did not exceed 1.5–4 m, in Babylon – 1.5–3 m. The sanitary improvement of cities was at an extremely low level. All this led to frequent outbreaks of epidemics, pandemics, in which diseases covered the entire country, or even several neighboring countries. The first recorded plague pandemic (known in literature as the “Plague of Justinian”) occurred in the 6th century. in the Eastern Roman Empire and covered many countries of the world. Over 50 years, the plague claimed about 100 million human lives.

Now it is difficult to even imagine how ancient cities with their many thousands of people could manage without public transport, without street lighting, without sewerage and other elements of urban amenities. And, probably, it is no coincidence that it was at that time that many philosophers began to have doubts about the advisability of the existence of large cities. Aristotle, Plato, Hippodamus of Miletus, and later Vitruvius repeatedly came out with treatises that addressed issues of the optimal size of settlements and their structure, problems of planning, construction art, architecture, and even the relationship with the natural environment.

Medieval cities were already significantly smaller in size than their classical counterparts and rarely numbered more than several tens of thousands of inhabitants. Thus, in the 14th century. the population of the largest European cities - London and Paris - was 100 and 30 thousand inhabitants, respectively. However, urban environmental problems have not become less acute. Epidemics continued to be the main scourge. The second plague pandemic, the Black Death, broke out in the 14th century. and killed almost a third of Europe's population.

With the development of industry, rapidly growing capitalist cities quickly surpassed the population of their predecessors. In 1850, London crossed the million mark, then Paris. By the beginning of the 20th century. there were already 12 “millionaire” cities in the world (including two in Russia). The growth of large cities proceeded at an ever faster pace. And again, as the most formidable manifestation of the disharmony between man and nature, outbreaks of epidemics of dysentery, cholera, and typhoid fever began one after another. The rivers in the cities were terribly polluted. The Thames in London began to be called the “black river”. Fetid streams and ponds in other large cities became sources of gastrointestinal epidemics. Thus, in 1837, in London, Glasgow and Edinburgh, a tenth of the population fell ill with typhoid fever and approximately a third of patients died. From 1817 to 1926, six cholera pandemics were recorded in Europe. In Russia, in 1848 alone, about 700 thousand people died from cholera. However, over time, thanks to the achievements of science and technology, advances in biology and medicine, and the development of water supply and sewerage systems, the epidemiological danger began to weaken significantly. We can say that at that stage the environmental crisis of large cities was overcome. Of course, such overcoming each time cost colossal efforts and sacrifices, but the collective intelligence, perseverance and ingenuity of people always turned out to be stronger than the crisis situations they themselves created.

Scientific and technical achievements based on outstanding natural scientific discoveries of the 20th century. contributed to the rapid development of productive forces. This is not only the enormous successes of nuclear physics, molecular biology, chemistry, and space exploration, but also the rapid, continuous growth in the number of large cities and urban population. The volume of industrial production has increased hundreds and thousands of times, the power supply of humanity has increased more than 1000 times, the speed of movement has increased by 400 times, the speed of information transfer has increased by millions of times, etc. Such active human activity, of course, does not pass without a trace on nature , since resources are drawn directly from the biosphere

And this is only one side of the environmental problems of a big city. Another is that in addition to consuming natural resources and energy drawn from vast spaces, a modern city with a million people produces a huge amount of waste. Such a city annually emits into the atmosphere at least 10–11 million tons of water vapor, 1.5–2 million tons of dust, 1.5 million tons of carbon monoxide, 0.25 million tons of sulfur dioxide, 0.3 million tons of nitrogen oxides and a large the amount of other pollution that is not indifferent to human health and the environment. In terms of the scale of its impact on the atmosphere, a modern city can be compared to a volcano.

What are the features of the current environmental problems of large cities? First of all, there are numerous sources of environmental impact and their scale. Industry and transport - and these are hundreds of large enterprises, hundreds of thousands or even millions of vehicles - are the main culprits of pollution of the urban environment. The nature of waste has also changed in our time. Previously, almost all waste was of natural origin (bones, wool, natural fabrics, wood, paper, manure, etc.), and they were easily included in the cycle of nature. Nowadays, a significant part of waste is synthetic substances. Their transformation in natural conditions occurs extremely slowly.

One of the environmental problems is associated with the intensive growth of non-traditional “pollution”, which has a wave nature. The electromagnetic fields of high voltage power lines, radio broadcasting and television stations, as well as a large number of electric motors are increasing. The overall level of acoustic noise increases (due to high transport speeds, due to the operation of various mechanisms and machines). Ultraviolet radiation, on the contrary, decreases (due to air pollution). Energy costs per unit area increase, and, consequently, heat transfer and thermal pollution increase. Under the influence of the huge masses of multi-story buildings, the properties of the geological rocks on which the city stands change.

The consequences of such phenomena for people and the environment have not yet been sufficiently studied. But they are no less dangerous than pollution of water and air basins and soil and vegetation cover. For residents of large cities, all this together results in a great overstrain of the nervous system. City dwellers get tired quickly, are susceptible to various diseases and neuroses, and suffer from increased irritability. Chronically poor health of a significant part of urban residents in some Western countries is considered a specific disease. It was called "urbanite".

Features of megacities

One of the very difficult modern environmental problems is associated with the rapid growth of cities and the expansion of their territory. Cities are changing not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively. Gigantic metropolises, clusters of cities with multi-million populations spread over many hundreds of square kilometers, absorbing neighboring settlements and forming urban agglomerations, urbanized areas - megacities. They extend in some cases for hundreds of kilometers. Thus, on the Atlantic coast of the United States, one might say, a huge urbanized area with a population of 80 million people has already formed. It was called Boswash (merged agglomerations of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington and other cities). By 2000 in America there will be two more giant urbanized areas - China in the Great Lakes region (a group of cities led by Chicago and Pittsburgh) with a population of 40 million people and San San in California (San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego) with population of 20 million people. In Japan, a group of millionaire cities - Tokyo, Yokohama, Kyoto, Nagoya, Osaka - formed one of the world's largest megacities - Tokaido, where 60 million people live - half of the country's population. Huge populous agglomerations have developed in Germany (Ruhr), England (London and Birmingham), the Netherlands (Randstad Holland) and other countries.

The emergence of urban agglomerations can be spoken of as a qualitatively new stage in the relationship between the city and nature. The processes of interaction between a modern urban agglomeration and the natural environment are complex, multifaceted, and extremely difficult to manage.

Urban agglomerations and urbanized areas are very vast territories in which nature has been deeply changed by economic activities. Moreover, radical transformations of nature occur not only within the city, but also far beyond its borders. For example, physical and geological changes in soils and groundwater appear, depending on specific conditions, at a depth of up to 800 m and within a radius of 25–30 km. These are pollution, compaction and disruption of the structure of soils and soils, the formation of craters, etc. At even greater distances, biogeochemical changes in the environment are noticeable: depletion of flora and fauna, forest degradation, soil acidification. First of all, people living in the zone of influence of a city or agglomeration suffer from this. They breathe poisoned air, drink contaminated water, and eat foods laden with chemicals.

Experts believe that in the next decade the number of millionaire cities on Earth will apparently approach 300. About half of them will have at least 3 million people each. The traditional “record holders” – New York, Tokyo, London – will be supplanted by the largest cities in developing countries. These will be truly unprecedented monster cities. The population of the largest of them by this time will be: Mexico City - 26.3 million, Sao Paulo - 24 million, Tokyo - 17.1, Calcutta - 16.6 million, Bombay - 16, New York - 15.5, Shanghai – 13.8, Seoul – 13.5, Delhi and Rio de Janeiro – 13.3 each, Buenos Aires and Cairo – 13.2 million people each. Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Tashkent are also included or very soon will be included in the category of multimillion-dollar cities.

Is it advisable to repeat the mistakes of Western urbanism and deliberately follow the path of creating megacities where this can still be avoided without much difficulty? With the rapid growth of cities, environmental problems are also rapidly worsening. Improving the health of the urban environment is one of the most pressing social challenges. The first steps to solve this problem are the creation of progressive low-waste technologies, silent and environmentally friendly transport. Environmental problems of cities are closely related to urban planning problems. City planning, placement of large industrial enterprises and other complexes, taking into account their growth and development, choice of transport system - all this requires qualified environmental assessment.

One of the largest cities in the world is Moscow. Observations show that the state of the environment in Moscow is deteriorating, and the environmental and geological risk of human habitation is increasing. This is not unique to Moscow; it also happens in most other large cities in the world. The structure of the giant city is extremely complex and diverse. On the territory of Moscow there are more than 2,800 industrial facilities, including many enterprises with high environmental risk, more than 40 thousand large residential buildings, 12 thermal power plants, 4 state district power plants, 53 district and quarterly thermal stations, 2 thousand local boiler houses. There is an extensive network of urban transport: the length of bus, trolleybus, and tram lines is 3,800 km, and the length of metro lines is 240 km. Under the city there is a dense interweaving of water, heat, electricity, sewerage, gas pipelines, radio and telephone cables.

Such hyperconcentration of structures and urban services inevitably leads to disruptions in the stability of the geological environment. The density and structure of the soil changes, uneven subsidence of individual sections of the earth's surface occurs, deep failures, landslides, and flooding are formed. And this in turn causes premature destruction of buildings and underground communications. Emergency situations are created, often life-threatening. The urban economy is suffering enormous damage.

It has been established that almost half of Moscow’s territory (48%) is in a geological risk zone. In one and a half to two decades, according to forecasts, about 12% of the city’s territory will be added to this. The Moscow air basin is also in a serious condition. In addition to individual chemical elements, it contains another 1,200 different compounds. Already in the atmosphere they react and new compounds are formed. Every year, from 1 to 1.2 million tons of harmful chemicals are released into the air of the capital. A small part of them is carried away by the winds outside the city, but the main part remains in Moscow, and every year each Muscovite accounts for 100–150 kg of air pollutants.

The beginning of the 90s was marked by a reduction in emissions of harmful substances from city enterprises. A significant part of the cupola furnaces were closed, and other furnaces were equipped with devices that prevent harmful emissions into the air. Other measures are being taken to improve the health of the urban environment.

11.4. Solving recycling problems

Recycling of environmentally hazardous gases

Recently, many people are increasingly aware of themselves as residents of one communal apartment with a general vulnerable atmosphere. If we continue to throw nitrogen and sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide and dioxide into it, we can expect the most tragic consequences. It is known that an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere creates a greenhouse effect with the threat of melting glaciers. And if the total amount of ice decreases by only 10%, then the level of the world's oceans will rise by 5.5 m. Obviously, huge coastal areas will be flooded,

The Earth's atmosphere currently contains about 2.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide, and billions of tons are added to this amount by industry and transport. Part of this amount is absorbed by the vegetation of the Earth, part is dissolved in the ocean. Scientists in many countries around the world are working on how to get rid of excess carbon dioxide. For example, US scientists proposed converting carbon dioxide into dry ice or liquid, and then carrying it out of the atmosphere with rockets. However, calculations show that to put carbon dioxide into orbit, it is necessary to burn so much fuel that the amount of the same gas released during fuel combustion exceeds the amount of gas sent into space.

Swiss experts propose converting emissions from industrial stokers into dry ice, but not throwing it outside the Earth, but storing it somewhere in the north in storage facilities insulated with foam plastic. Dry ice will slowly evaporate, which will at least delay the development of the greenhouse effect. However, to store just half of the carbon dioxide emitted annually by Germany alone, ten balls of dry ice with a diameter of 400 m would have to be made. Other scientists hope to somehow enhance the natural processes that lead to the absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. For example, expand the areas occupied by forests on the planet. However, to absorb emissions from coal-fired thermal power plants alone, Germany will have to plant 36 thousand km 2 with forest. Environmentalists object to the idea of ​​American oceanographers to disperse iron powder into Antarctic water to stimulate the proliferation of planktonic algae, which could absorb more carbon dioxide. In addition, experiments carried out on a small scale showed the low efficiency of this method. The Japanese propose to develop, using genetic engineering, especially active breeds of algae that would actively absorb carbon dioxide, converting it into biomass. However, the seas can turn into “jelly” from multiplied algae.

The idea of ​​the employees of the oil company Shell seems more practical: to inject carbon dioxide, first transferring it into the liquid phase, into depleted oil and gas-bearing formations. In addition, liquid carbon dioxide will displace remaining oil and natural gas to the surface. True, the cost of electricity from a thermal power plant equipped with the necessary equipment for this will increase by 40%, and the profit from additionally extracted fossil fuels will reduce this price by only 2%. Yes, there are no depleted gas deposits in the world yet large enough for such storage. Free space in Tyumen or Holland will appear only in a few decades.

So far, the most promising idea seems to be sending carbon dioxide to the bottom of the seas and oceans. You can, for example, drown blocks of dry ice in the open sea (it is heavier than water). When transported at sea no further than 200 km from the coast, the cost of electricity will increase by the same 40%. If you pump liquid carbon dioxide to a depth of about 3000 m, the price of electricity will increase less - by 35%. In addition, there is a danger of such measures. After all, the gas will cover hundreds of square kilometers of the ocean floor with a suffocating layer, destroying all life there. And it is possible that, under the influence of deep currents, it will eventually escape from the depths of the sea, like from an uncorked bottle of champagne. In 1986, such a case was observed in Cameroon: about a billion cubic meters of carbon dioxide, accumulated at the bottom as a result of volcanic processes, escaped from the depths of Lake Nios. Hundreds of local residents and their livestock died in the valley surrounding the lake. It seems that humanity has no other choice but to limit the burning of fossil fuels.

Together with carbon dioxide, much more dangerous gases - sulfur oxides - are released into the atmosphere. It is known that sulfur oxides are formed during the combustion of fuel - coal or petroleum products containing sulfur. When they are burned, sulfur dioxide gases are formed, polluting the atmosphere. During cleaning, smoke is passed through bulky and expensive cleaning devices. Japanese specialists have proposed a more effective method - a microbiological method for purifying coal from sulfur.

Household disposalwaste

In recent decades, more than ever, people have begun to pay attention to the environment. They started talking about it in alarming tones, because in the atmosphere, the soil, in everything that grows and lives on it and in it, as well as in the aquatic environment (rivers, lakes and seas) - everywhere, previously unknown conditions began to appear more and more noticeably and sharply. observed deviations. People are increasingly saying that the environment is on the brink of disaster and needs to be urgently saved.

Well-equipped with various equipment and other means, man directly influences nature: he extracts, uses, and processes earthly wealth in unprecedented quantities. Every year it interferes more and more noticeably with the natural environment that has naturally developed over thousands of years. At the same time, nature changes beyond recognition. This process has already spread to almost the entire globe.

In many industrialized countries, measures against environmental pollution are already being taken seriously in practice and achieving excellent results. Let us consider in more detail how environmental problems are solved, for example, in the Rhine-Westphalian industrial region of Germany. Not so long ago, this area was considered one of the most ecologically disadvantaged not only in all of Western Europe, but also in the world. Indeed, here, to the north and west of the Rhine Slate Mountains, industry and transport have developed extremely rapidly over the last century, and cities and workers' settlements have grown rapidly. There are probably no such abundantly built-up and so densely populated places even in the most populous areas of Japan and China. The standard of living in Germany has been very high for decades. Therefore, many people have their own houses and almost every house has a small plot of land for a garden, vegetable garden and flower bed, outbuildings, garages and cars. You can imagine how much household and various other garbage was thrown into landfills here day after day, year after year, and then burned right in the field. And how many chimneys there were, choking with smoke—factory, factory, and home! What a veil of smog hung over the cities, what fog constantly shrouded everything! What a violet-oily sheen the sun shone in the waters of the Ruhr, Rhine and other seemingly hopelessly diseased local rivers! They were already a kind of symbols of human pollution of nature.

“Three decades ago, our sky here looked more like a shaggy, dirty blanket than azure,” says one waste recycling specialist. What is their recycling facility like? Bluish-gray-blue buildings, two white tall thin pipes - everything looks surprisingly light and elegant. And the earth, and the sky above it, and in general everything around here has really changed beyond recognition. Even the asphalt and concrete on the driveways appear blue. There are green lawns and young trees all around. This facility, the Herten Recycling Center, occupies a much smaller area than a typical burning landfill. It was built on a vacant lot; a lot has already been done in its workshops to transform, green, and decorate the surrounding area.

In Germany, on average, up to 400 kg of household waste alone accumulates per resident per year. An even larger share of what has to be burned is waste from production - industrial, commercial, craft and others, as well as from trade, food and services, and transport from medical institutions. The so-called urban waste is also generated in considerable quantities. All this together per person in Germany per year amounts to 4.5–4.6 tons.

In a garbage “crematorium” it is not easy to burn a wide variety of waste. The production of secondary products is also established here. After all, the company is called that: Center for Secondary Raw Materials Extraction in Herten. The ash generated from burnt plastic bags and various containers of this kind is again used to make them. “Residual inert products” are collected in huge “bags”. In a day they are collected up to 10 tons and immediately taken to the “mountain”, where they are used as soil for green spaces. For example, in Gelsenkirchen they have been making a “mountain” out of them for more than a quarter of a century. It occupies about 100 hectares. In the past, a dull, vast wasteland is being transformed into a cultural park, a “green zone.” Gradually, day after day, the soil and subsoil environment of the “torah” is formed, “laid out”, and a green world develops on it. New technological projects for processing waste from secondary extraction of raw materials are being developed.

It is inevitable that enterprises for the secondary extraction of raw materials will have to be built near Moscow, and near St. Petersburg, and near other cities. In addition, such enterprises provide a lot of electrical energy.

Nuclear waste disposal

The life of modern society is unthinkable without powerful sources of energy. There are few of them - hydro, thermal and nuclear power plants. Using wind, solar, tidal energy, etc. has not yet become widespread. Thermal power plants emit huge amounts of dust and gases into the air. They contain both radionuclides and sulfur, which then returns to the earth in the form of acid precipitation. Water resources, even in our huge country, are limited, and besides, the construction of hydroelectric power stations in most cases leads to undesirable changes in the landscape and climate. In the near future, one of the main sources of energy will be nuclear power plants. They have many advantages, including environmental ones, and the use of reliable protection can make them quite safe. But one more important question remains: what to do with radioactive waste? All radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, accumulated over the entire period of their operation, is stored mainly on the territory of the stations. In general, the current waste management scheme at the nuclear power plant so far ensures complete safety, has no impact on the environment and complies with IAEA requirements. However, the storage facilities are already overflowing and require expansion and reconstruction. In addition, the time has come to dismantle stations that have served their useful life. The estimated operating time of domestic reactors is 30 years. From 2000, reactors will be shut down almost every year. And until a simple and cheap way to dispose of radioactive waste is found, it is premature to talk about serious prospects for nuclear energy.

Currently, radioactive waste is contained in special storage facilities, where steel containers are placed in which the waste is fused together with a glass-mineral matrix. They have not yet been buried, but burial projects are being actively developed. Sometimes the question is discussed: is it necessary to bury waste at all, maybe it should continue to be stored this way - after all, it is possible that some isotope will be needed by future technology? The point, however, is that the amount of waste is constantly growing and accumulating, so that in the future this source of useful elements is unlikely to dry up. If necessary, the processing technology will simply be changed. The problem is different. Near-surface repositories guarantee safety only for about a hundred years, and the waste will become inactive only after several million years.

One more question. Can the thermal energy released by nuclear waste be used, for example, for heating? It is possible, but it is irrational. On the one hand, the heat release of the waste is not that great, much less than the heat generated in the reactor. On the other hand, using waste for heating would require very expensive radiation safety. In thermal energy, the situation is similar: there are many ways to better use the heat that goes into the chimney, but at some level this is unprofitable. Therefore, nuclear waste must be disposed of.

The well-known idea of ​​​​processing long-lived radioactive isotopes into nuclei with a shorter lifetime using nuclear reactions occurring in the reactors themselves, when operating them in a special mode, is being discussed. It would seem that it is simpler, and no additional equipment is needed. Unfortunately, the difference in the rates of production of new and processing of already formed long-lived isotopes is small, and, as calculations show, a positive balance will occur only after about 500 years. Until this time, humanity will “drown” in mountains of radioactive waste. In other words, reactors are unlikely to be able to cure themselves of radioactivity.

Radioactive waste can be isolated in special thick-walled burial grounds. The only trouble is that such burials must be designed for at least a hundred thousand years of safe storage. How can you predict what might happen over such a huge period? Be that as it may, spent nuclear fuel storage facilities should be located in places where earthquakes, displacements or fractures of soil layers, etc. are obviously excluded. In addition, since radioactive decay is accompanied by heating of the decaying substance, the slag hidden in the repository must also be cooled . If the storage conditions are incorrect, overheating and even an explosion of hot slag can occur.

In some countries, storage facilities for particularly dangerous long-lived isotopes in slag are located underground at a depth of several hundred meters, surrounded by rocks. Containers with slag are equipped with thick anti-corrosion shells and multi-meter layers of clay that prevent groundwater from seeping through. One of these storage facilities is being built in Sweden at a depth of half a kilometer. This complex engineering structure is equipped with a variety of control equipment. Experts are confident in the reliability of this ultra-deep radioactive repository. This confidence is inspired by a natural ore formation discovered in Canada at a depth of 430 m with a volume of over a million cubic meters with a huge uranium content of up to 55% (ordinary ores contain percentages or even fractions of a percent of this element). This unique formation, which arose as a result of sedimentary processes approximately 1.3 million years ago, is surrounded by a layer of clay with a thickness in different places from 5 to 30 m, which really tightly isolated the uranium and its decay products. No traces of either increased radioactivity or increased temperature were found on the surface above the ore formation and in its vicinity. However, what will it be like in other places and under other conditions?

In some places, radioactive slag is vitrified, turning into durable monolithic blocks. The storage facilities are equipped with special heat control and removal systems. To confirm the reliability of this method, we can again refer to a natural phenomenon. In Equatorial Africa, in Gabon, about 2 million years ago, it happened that water and uranium ore were collected in a stone bowl created by nature itself inside rocks and in such proportions that a natural, “without any human intervention” nuclear reactor was created, and there, for some time, until the accumulated uranium burned out, a fission chain reaction took place. Plutonium and the same radioactive fragments were formed, as in our artificially created atomic boilers. Isotopic analysis of water, soil and surrounding rocks showed that radioactivity remained walled up and in the 2 million years that have passed since then, its diffusion has been insignificant. This allows us to hope that vitrified sources of radioactivity will also remain tightly isolated for the next hundred thousand years.

Sometimes slag is walled up in blocks of especially strong concrete, which are dumped into the ocean depths, although this is far from the best gift to our descendants. Recently, the possibility of throwing containers with long-lived isotopes using rockets onto the invisible far side of the Moon has been seriously discussed. But how can we ensure a 100% guarantee that all launches will be successful and that none of the launch vehicles will explode in the earth’s atmosphere and cover it with deadly ash? The risk is very high. And in general, we don’t know why our descendants will need the far side of the Moon.

And a lot of radioactive waste is generated at nuclear power plants. For example, in Sweden, whose energy is 50% nuclear, by 2010. approximately 200 thousand m3 of radioactive waste requiring burial will accumulate, of which 15% contain long-lived isotopes - remnants of concentrated nuclear fuel that require particularly reliable disposal. This volume is comparable to the volume of a concert hall and only for small Sweden!

Many experts come to the conclusion: the most rational place for burial is the bowels of the Earth. To guarantee radiation, the burial depth must be at least half a kilometer. For greater safety, it is better to place the waste even deeper, but, alas, the cost of mining increases faster than the square of the depth. Relatively recently, the idea of ​​burying high-level nuclear waste in deep wells filled with a low-melting, inert, waterproof environment was put forward. The most successful filling of wells may be natural sulfur. Sealed capsules with high-level waste are immersed to the bottom of the well, melting the sulfur with its own heat release. Other methods of disposal of radioactive waste are also proposed.

Abstract on the topic:

"Ecological problems of modern cities"

INTRODUCTION

“Cities are a great creation of the mind and hands of man. They play a decisive role in the territorial organization of society. They serve as a mirror of their countries and regions. Leading cities are called spiritual workshops of humanity and engines of progress” - this is the admiring description of the city given by Georgy Mikhailovich Lappo in his book “Geography of Cities”.

One cannot but agree with him. Indeed, urbanization and population play an important role in the life of every country.

One of the most characteristic features of the development of modern society is the rapid growth of cities, the continuous rate of increase in the number of their inhabitants, the increasing role of cities in the life of society, the transformation of rural areas into urban areas, as well as the migration of the rural population to cities.

The relevance of this topic is as follows:

most of the world's citizens are born city dwellers;

at the beginning of the third millennium, five and a half billion of the seven billion people live in cities;

urbanization affects the ecological state of the environment.

1. URBAN ENVIRONMENT

The urban environment is a complex, key concept. The study of the properties and features of the urban environment opens the way to understanding the city, its essence as a phenomenon. The urban environment is the most important component of a city's potential. It allows the creative potential of society to be realized and contributes to the accumulation of energy of society to move forward.

The urban environment is a collection of numerous and varied channels of mass communications, forms and methods of communication, and connection to sources of various information. Its fundamental feature is increasing diversity. HE. Yanitsky concludes that scientific and technological progress cannot develop without an increasing diversity of connections and communication. Diversity creates a wide range of opportunities for introducing a person to the endless world of culture. The urban environment determines the attractiveness of a big city.

The urban environment is characterized by multicomponentity. It is formed by both material (elements of the city and nature) and spiritual components. The population is the subject towards whom the environment is oriented. And at the same time it is an element of the environment. The composition of the population greatly influences the state and properties of the environment.

The spiritual component of the urban environment is enriched by great literature. Such wonderful cities as St. Petersburg, Moscow, Paris have a large “literary population” - heroes of works who forever live in one city or another. The Petersburg of Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Blok is also the Petersburg of their heroes.

The structural complexity and complexity of the dynamics of a city are associated with its properties such as inconsistency, problematicity, and paradox. The city is a contradictory form of territorial organization of society. The contradictions are inherent in it from the very beginning, contained in its very essence. They can be weakened by thoughtful regulation, or they can be strengthened by mistakes and miscalculations of managers and designers. But the root of problems and contradictions is only partly in the actions of people. The city itself creates contradictions and problems.

The city's resources are used by different functions, between which contradictions arise - a kind of competition of functions. There is a confrontation between old and new industries. Different segments of the population have different requirements for the organization of the urban environment and strive to shape it in accordance with their needs, tastes and ideas. The city, increasing in size, seems to grow out of its tight clothes. The streets are becoming too narrow to accommodate increased traffic flows. The center cannot cope with servicing both the city and the agglomeration. The capacity of utility systems is exhausted.

A metropolis is a system, but the system is very paradoxical. Different elements of a metropolis are developing at different rates. There is a mismatch of the system, a violation of the proportionality and compliance of the parts and elements that make up the metropolis. Although, when a metropolis is designed, this proportionality and mutual correspondence is strictly ensured on the basis of careful calculations.

Urbanization, on the one hand, improves the living conditions of the population, on the other, it leads to the displacement of natural systems by artificial ones, environmental pollution, and an increase in chemical, physical and psychological stress on the human body.

A metropolis changes almost all components of the natural environment - the atmosphere, vegetation, soil, relief, hydrographic network, groundwater, soil and even climate. The process of urbanization, conditioned in general by the development of social production and the nature of social relations, itself has an increasingly diverse impact on the development and location of production in other spheres of society, changing its social and economic structure, demographic indicators, and conditions for personal development.

Man constantly dreams of a better future. Since ancient times, he has either spontaneously or deliberately transformed and improved the appearance of populated areas. The vitality of cities is not at all surprising, because they accumulate material assets that often simply cannot be assessed - houses, public buildings, theaters, stadiums, roads, bridges, pipelines and parks.

The metropolis ultimately reflects the class character of society, its contradictions, vices and contrasts.

Megacities are centers of political and cultural life. They arose during slavery and developed under feudalism and capitalism. The process of population concentration in megacities occurs much faster than the growth of the total population. According to the UN, the world's urban population is growing by 4% per year.

The emergence of megalopolises means the spontaneous reconstruction of large areas of the Earth. At the same time, air and water basins, green areas suffer, transport connections are disrupted, which leads to discomfort in all respects. Many cities are expanding so that they can no longer fit on land and are beginning to “slide into the sea.”

The process of population concentration in cities is inevitable and essentially positive. But the structure of a perfect city, its industrial, “city-forming” factor came into conflict with the historical purpose of the city and its role in raising people’s living standards.

Modern large cities, especially megalopolises, have expanded spontaneously, including residential facilities, numerous scientific and public institutions, industrial enterprises and transport facilities, growing, expanding, merging with each other, crowding and destroying the living nature of the Earth. Modern industrial cities, especially some super-cities in capitalist countries, are in most cases a mass of concrete, asphalt, smoke, and toxic emissions. Below we discuss a number of problems of the metropolis, as well as the safety of life in the metropolis.

Humanity in the process of life certainly influences various ecological systems. Examples of such, most often dangerous, impacts are the draining of swamps, deforestation, destruction of the ozone layer, reversal of river flows, and dumping of waste into the environment. By doing this, a person destroys the existing connections in a stable system, which can lead to its destabilization, that is, to an environmental disaster.

Below we will consider one of the problems of human influence on the environment - the problem of urban waste.

Each large region, which is a territory with certain natural conditions and a specific type of economic development, deserves special consideration from an environmental point of view. The importance of regional environmental analysis lies in the fact that its results are of great practical importance (the problems of the region are “closer” to a person than the problems of a country, continent or planet). In addition, the ecological state of the regions ultimately determines the global state of natural components.

2. GENERAL ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS OF CITIES OF THE WORLD

Environmental problems of cities, mainly the largest of them, are associated with excessive concentration of population, transport and industrial enterprises in relatively small areas, with the formation of anthropogenic landscapes that are very far from a state of ecological balance.

The growth rate of the world's population is 1.5-2.0 times lower than the growth of the urban population, which today includes 40% of the world's people. For the period 1939 - 1979. the population of large cities increased by 4 times, in medium-sized cities by 3 times and in small cities by 2 times.

The socio-economic situation has led to the uncontrollability of the urbanization process in many countries. The percentage of urban population in individual countries is: Argentina - 83, Uruguay - 82, Australia - 75, USA - 80, Japan - 76, Germany - 90, Sweden - 83. In addition to large millionaire cities, urban agglomerations or merged cities are growing rapidly. These are Washington - Boston and Los Angeles - San Francisco in the USA; the city of Ruhr in Germany; Moscow, Donbass and Kuzbass in the CIS.

The circulation of matter and energy in cities significantly exceeds that in rural areas. The average density of the Earth's natural energy flow is 180 W/m2, the share of anthropogenic energy in it is 0.1 W/m2. In cities it increases to 30-40 and even 150 W/m2 (Manhattan).

Over large cities, the atmosphere contains 10 times more aerosols and 25 times more gases. At the same time, 60-70% of gas pollution comes from road transport. More active moisture condensation leads to an increase in precipitation by 5-10%. Self-cleaning of the atmosphere is prevented by a 10-20% decrease in solar radiation and wind speed.

With low air mobility, thermal anomalies over the city cover atmospheric layers of 250-400 m, and temperature contrasts can reach 5-6 (C. Temperature inversions are associated with them, leading to increased pollution, fog and smog.

Cities consume 10 or more times more water per person than rural areas, and water pollution reaches catastrophic proportions. Wastewater volumes reach 1 m2 per day per person. Therefore, almost all large cities experience a shortage of water resources and many of them receive water from remote sources.

Aquifers under cities are severely depleted as a result of continuous pumping by wells and wells, and are also polluted to a considerable depth.

The soil cover of urban areas is also undergoing a radical transformation. In large areas, under highways and neighborhoods, it is physically destroyed, and in recreational areas - parks, squares, courtyards - it is severely destroyed, polluted by household waste, harmful substances from the atmosphere, enriched with heavy metals, bare soil contributes to water and wind erosion.

The vegetation cover of cities is usually almost entirely represented by “cultural plantings” - parks, squares, lawns, flower beds, alleys. The structure of anthropogenic phytocenoses does not correspond to zonal and regional types of natural vegetation. Therefore, the development of green spaces in cities takes place in artificial conditions and is constantly supported by humans. Perennial plants in cities develop under conditions of severe oppression.

3. IMPACT OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON THE HEALTH OF THE URBAN POPULATION

Atmospheric pollution greatly affects the health of the urban population. This is evidenced, in particular, by significant differences in the incidence of the population in certain areas of the same city.

Changes in the health of city residents are not only an indicator of the ecological state of the metropolis, but also its most important socio-economic consequence, which should determine the leading directions for improving the quality of the environment. In this regard, it is very important to emphasize that the health of city residents itself, within the biological norm, is a function of economic, social (including psychological) and environmental conditions.

In general, the health of city residents is influenced by many factors, especially the characteristic features of the urban lifestyle - physical inactivity, increased nervous stress, transport fatigue and a number of others, but most of all - environmental pollution. This is evidenced by significant differences in the incidence of the population in different areas of the same metropolis.

The most noticeable negative consequences of environmental pollution in a large city are manifested in the deterioration of the health of city residents compared to residents of rural areas. For example, conducted by M.S. Bedny and his co-authors, an in-depth study of the morbidity of certain groups of the urban and rural population convincingly showed that city dwellers more often suffer from neuroses, cerebrovascular diseases, diseases of the central nervous system, and respiratory organs than rural residents.

Along with air pollution, many other urban environmental factors negatively affect human health.

Noise pollution in cities is almost always local in nature and is mainly caused by means of transport - urban, railway and aviation. Already now, on the main highways of megacities, noise levels exceed 90 dB and tend to increase by 0.5 dB annually, which is the greatest danger to the environment in areas of busy transport routes. As medical studies show, increased noise levels contribute to the development of neuropsychiatric diseases and hypertension. The fight against noise in the central areas of cities is complicated by the density of existing buildings, which makes it impossible to build noise barriers, expand highways and plant trees that reduce noise levels on the roads. Thus, the most promising solutions to this problem are the reduction of the own noise of vehicles (especially trams) and the use of new noise-absorbing materials in buildings facing the busiest highways, vertical gardening of houses and triple glazing of windows (with the simultaneous use of forced ventilation).

A particular problem is the increase in vibration levels in urban areas, the main source of which is transport. This problem has been little studied, but there is no doubt that its importance will increase.

Vibration contributes to faster wear and destruction of buildings and structures, but the most significant thing is that it can negatively affect the most precise technological processes. It is especially important to emphasize that vibration brings the greatest harm to advanced industries and, accordingly, its growth can have a limiting effect on the possibilities of scientific and technological progress in megacities.

4. CONDITION OF THE AIR POSITION

Most megacities are characterized by extremely strong and intense air pollution. For most polluting agents, and there are hundreds of them in the city, we can say with confidence that they, as a rule, exceed the maximum permissible concentrations. Moreover, since a city is exposed to multiple pollutants simultaneously, their combined effects can be even more significant.

It is widely believed that as the size of a city increases, the concentration of various pollutants in its atmosphere also increases, but in reality, if we calculate the average concentration of pollution for the entire territory of the city, then in multifunctional cities with a population of more than 100 thousand people it is approximately at the same level and practically does not increase with increasing city size. This is explained by the fact that, simultaneously with the increase in emissions, which increase in proportion to population growth, the urban area is expanding, which evens out the average concentrations of pollution in the atmosphere.

A significant feature of large cities with a population of more than 500 thousand people is that with the increase in the territory of the city and the number of its inhabitants, the differentiation of pollution concentrations in different areas increases steadily. Along with low levels of pollution concentration in peripheral areas, it increases sharply in areas of large industrial enterprises and, especially in central areas. In the latter, despite the absence of large industrial enterprises, as a rule, increased concentrations of air pollutants are always observed. This is caused both by the fact that in these areas there is intense traffic traffic, and by the fact that in the central areas the atmospheric air is usually several degrees higher than in the peripheral ones - this leads to the appearance of rising air currents over the city centers, sucking polluted air from industrial areas located on the near periphery.

Currently, great hopes in the field of air protection are associated with the maximum gasification of industry and the fuel and energy complex, but the effect of gasification should not be exaggerated. The fact is that switching from solid fuel to gas, of course, sharply reduces the volume of sulfur-containing emissions, but increases emissions of nitrogen oxides, the disposal of which is still technically problematic.

A similar situation arises when reducing carbon monoxide emissions, which is a product of incomplete combustion of fuel. By improving combustion modes, it is possible to reduce carbon monoxide emissions to a minimum, but at the same time as the temperature rises, the oxidation of atmospheric nitrogen also increases, leading to an increase in the volume of nitrogen oxides discharged into the atmosphere. Unlike stationary sources, air pollution from motor vehicles occurs at low altitudes and is almost always local in nature. Thus, the concentrations of pollution produced by road transport quickly decrease with distance from the transport highway, and in the presence of sufficiently high barriers (for example, in closed courtyards of houses) they can decrease by more than 10 times.

In general, vehicle emissions are significantly more toxic than emissions from stationary sources. Along with carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and soot (for diesel cars), a running car releases into the environment more than 200 substances and compounds that have a toxic effect.

There is no doubt that in the near future, air pollution in megacities by road transport will pose the greatest danger. This is mainly due to the fact that at present there are no fundamental solutions to this problem, although there is no shortage of individual technical projects and recommendations.

Let us briefly describe the main directions for solving the problem of reducing environmental pollution by motor vehicles.

4.1 Improvement of the internal combustion engine

This technically quite realistic direction can reduce specific fuel consumption by 10-15%, as well as reduce emissions by 15-20%. There is no doubt that this path can become very effective in the very near future, since it does not require major changes either in the automotive industry or in the vehicle maintenance and operation system. Here we should only take into account that the real environmental effect of these measures is not as high as it seems at first glance, since, for example, the reduction in carbon monoxide emissions is largely compensated by an increase in nitrogen oxide emissions.

Conversion of an internal combustion engine to gaseous fuel. Internal combustion engine. The existing long-term experience of operating a car using propane-butane mixtures shows a high environmental effect. The amount of carbon monoxide, heavy metals and hydrocarbons in automobile emissions is sharply reduced, but the level of nitrogen oxide emissions remains quite high. In addition, the use of gas mixtures is currently only possible on trucks and requires the establishment of a system of gas filling stations, so the capabilities of this solution are currently still limited.

Converting an internal combustion engine to hydrogen fuel is often advertised as an almost ideal solution to the problem, but it is often forgotten that nitrogen oxides are also formed when using hydrogen and that the extraction, combustion and transportation of large volumes of hydrogen are associated with great technical difficulties, are unsafe and very economically expensive. In a city with several hundred thousand cars, it would be necessary to have enormous reserves of hydrogen, the mere storage of which would require (to ensure the safety of the population) the alienation of vast territories. If we take into account that this would be supplemented by a developed network of gas stations, then such a city would be very unsafe for its residents. Even if we assume that an economically acceptable solution to the problem of storing hydrogen (including in the cars themselves) in a bound state will be found, then this problem, in our opinion, is unlikely to be promising in the coming decades.

4.2 Electric car

Replacing the car with an electric vehicle is also very heavily promoted in popular literature, but at present it is as unlikely to be feasible as the previous proposal. Firstly, even the most advanced batteries, along with their significant dead weight, which worsens the car’s parameters, require several times more energy to charge than a regular car would spend with equal work. Thus, the electric car, being the most energy-wasteful means of transport, while reducing environmental pollution at the place of its operation, sharply increases it at the place of energy production. Secondly, the production of batteries requires a significant amount of valuable non-ferrous metals, the shortage of which is growing almost faster than the shortage of oil and gas. And thirdly, an electric car, which is practically “clean” for a city street, is not so for the motorist himself, since when the batteries operate, many toxic substances are constantly released, which inevitably end up in the interior of the electric car. Even if we assume that all of the above problems would be technically resolved, it should be taken into account that it would take dozens of years and several tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild the entire automotive industry, change the vehicle fleet, and rebuild the vehicle maintenance and operation systems. Therefore, a battery-powered car is unlikely to become a promising solution to the problem of environmental pollution by motor vehicles.

In addition to those discussed above, there are dozens of other technical solutions, many of which are being developed into prototypes. Among them there are both unpromising ones, for example, a car with a flywheel battery, which can only move well on a perfectly flat and straight road - otherwise the gyroscopic effect of the flywheel will seriously interfere with control, and quite promising “hybrid” designs. Among the latter, the idea of ​​a freight trolleybus with a battery for interline movements is very interesting, the implementation of which, subject to the improvement of current collectors and the reconstruction of current drives, can dramatically reduce air pollution, especially in city centers.

In addition to improving the means of transport themselves, planning measures, measures to improve the management of traffic flows and measures to rationalize transportation within the metropolis can make a significant contribution to reducing gas pollution in the atmosphere of cities. The creation of a unified automated transportation management system in cities can dramatically reduce vehicle mileage within the city and, accordingly, reduce air pollution.

When characterizing air pollution in the city, it is necessary to mention that it is subject to noticeable fluctuations caused by both weather conditions and the operating mode of the enterprise and vehicles.

As a rule, atmospheric pollution is greater during the day than at night, and greater in winter than in summer, but here there are exceptions, associated, for example, with photochemical smog in the summer or the formation of stagnant masses of polluted air over the metropolis at night. Megacities located in different climatic zones and in specific landscape conditions are characterized by various types of critical situations, during which atmospheric pollution can reach critical values, but in all cases they are associated with prolonged calm weather.

Atmospheric air pollution is the most serious environmental problem of a modern city; it causes significant damage to the health of citizens, material and technical facilities located in the city (buildings, facilities, structures, industrial and transport equipment, communications, industrial products, raw materials and semi-finished products) and green spaces .

It is easy to see that as the cost of industrial equipment and industrial products rises, the damage caused by air pollution will steadily increase. Moreover, it turns out that already a number of the most advanced industries, such as electronics, precision engineering and instrument making, are experiencing serious difficulties in their development in urban areas. Enterprises in these industries have to spend a lot of money on cleaning the air entering their workshops, and despite this, in production facilities located in megacities, technology violations caused by air pollution are becoming more frequent every year. But even if in workshops for the production of high-precision and high-quality products it is possible to create conditions close to ideal, then, when leaving the workshop, it begins to be subject to the destructive effects of pollutants and can quickly lose its quality.

Thus, air pollution becomes a real brake on scientific and technological progress in cities, the effect of which will constantly intensify as the requirements for clean technology increase, the accuracy of industrial equipment increases, and microminiaturization spreads.

A similar increase in damage is observed with the accelerated destruction of building facades in the polluted atmosphere of cities.

5. INFLUENCE OF ATMOSPHERE POLLUTION ON HUMAN HEALTH

The subject of debate among professionals is the contribution of environmental pollution and its individual types to the increase in morbidity and mortality of the population, due to the complexity of the interaction of numerous influencing factors and the difficulties of identifying disease factors. The table provides a general list of human diseases that may be associated with environmental pollution.

List of diseases associated with air pollution

Pathology	Substances that cause pathology.
System diseases blood circulation	sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur compounds, hydrogen sulfide, ethylene, propylene, butylene, fatty acids, mercury, lead.
Diseases of the nervous system and sensory organs. Mental disorders	chromium, hydrogen sulfide, silicon dioxide, mercury.
Respiratory diseases	dust, sulfur and nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, phenol, ammonia, hydrocarbons, silicon dioxide, chlorine, mercury.
Digestive diseases	carbon disulfide, hydrogen sulfide, dust, nitrogen oxides, chromium, phenol, silicon dioxide, fluorine.
Diseases of the blood and blood-forming organs	oxides of sulfur, carbon, nitrogen, hydrocarbons, nitrous acid, ethylene, propylene, hydrogen sulfide.
Diseases of the skin and subcutaneous tissue	fluorine-containing substances.
Diseases of the genitourinary organs	carbon disulfide, carbon dioxide, hydrocarbon, hydrogen sulfide, ethylene, sulfur monoxide, butylene, carbon monoxide.

Pollution can have different effects on the body and depends on its type, concentration, duration and frequency of exposure. The body's reaction is determined by individual characteristics, age, gender, and state of health of a person. Children, sick people, people working in hazardous working conditions, and smokers are more vulnerable. All registered and studied phenomena of increased mortality and morbidity in areas with high air pollution indicate the obviousness and widespread nature of such impacts from environmental pollution.

According to experts from the World Health Organization (WHO), there are five categories of public health reactions to environmental pollution:

increased mortality;

increased morbidity;

the presence of functional changes that exceed the norm;

the presence of functional changes that do not exceed the norm;

relatively safe condition.

These categories can be considered as relative indicators that collectively characterize the state of human health and the quality of the environment. An indicator of health, first of all, is the amount of health, i.e. average life expectancy.

If we keep this indicator in mind, the most important environmental risk factors include:

air pollution;

drinking water contamination.

In the human body, acute or chronic poisoning develops, and long-term pathogenic pathological processes also occur, depending on the dose, time and nature of exposure to chemical contaminants. Short-term intake of large quantities of toxic substances into the body leads to the development of a clinically pronounced pathological process - acute poisoning. Such poisonings are divided into mild, moderate and severe. The latter sometimes result in death.

Poisonings that are caused by the systematic or periodic intake of relatively small amounts of toxic substances into the body are called chronic poisonings. These poisonings rarely have a pronounced clinical picture. Their diagnosis is very difficult, since the same substance causes liver damage in some people, hematopoietic organs in others, kidneys in others, and the nervous system in others. Only a small number of chemical pollutants, when exposed in small doses, cause a strictly specific pathological process, while the vast majority produce a so-called general toxic effect. By “long-term consequences” or “long-term effect” of the influence of chemical pollutants is meant the development of disease-causing processes and pathological conditions in people who have contact with chemical pollutants in the long term of their lives, as well as during the lives of several generations of their offspring. Long-term effects unite a wide group of pathological processes.

Pathological phenomena in the nervous system in a more distant period after chemical exposure cause diseases such as parkinsonism, polyneuritis, paresis and paralysis, psychosis; in the cardiovascular system - heart attacks, coronary insufficiency, etc.

Based on mortality statistics, one can judge the significance of long-term effects:

from cardiovascular pathologies (about 50%);

from malignant tumors (about 20%) in industrialized cities.

Naturally, the most sensitive organs to the effects of atmospheric pollution are the organs of the respiratory system. Toxification of the body occurs through the alveoli of the lungs, the area of ​​which (capable of gas exchange) exceeds 100 m2. During gas exchange, toxicants enter the blood. Solid suspensions in the form of particles of various sizes settle in different parts of the respiratory tract.

6. WATER POLLUTION

Pollution of the water basin in cities should be considered in two aspects - water pollution in the water consumption area and pollution of the water basin within the city due to its wastewater.

Water pollution in the water consumption area is a serious factor that worsens the environmental condition of cities. It is produced both due to the discharge of part of the untreated wastewater from cities and enterprises located above the water intake zone of a given city and water pollution by river transport, and due to the entry into water bodies of part of the fertilizers and pesticides applied to the fields. Moreover, if the first types of pollution can be dealt with effectively by building treatment facilities, then it is very difficult to prevent pollution of the water basin caused by agricultural activities. In areas of high moisture, about 20% of fertilizers and pesticides applied to the soil end up in watercourses. This, in turn, can lead to eutrophication of water bodies, which further deteriorates water quality.

It is important to note that water treatment facilities of water pipelines are not able to purify drinking water from solutions of these substances, therefore drinking water may contain them in elevated concentrations and negatively affect human health. The fight against this type of pollution requires the use of fertilizers and pesticides in catchment areas exclusively in granular form, the development and implementation of rapidly decomposing pesticides, as well as biological methods of plant protection.

Cities are also powerful sources of water pollution.

In large cities, per capita (taking into account contaminated surface runoff), about 1 m3 of contaminated wastewater is discharged into water bodies every day. Therefore, cities need powerful wastewater treatment plants, the operation of which causes considerable difficulties. Thus, during the operation of a biological treatment plant for urban wastewater, about 1.5-2 tons of waste sludge are generated per year per inhabitant. Currently, such sludge is stored on land, occupying large areas, and causes soil water pollution. Moreover, the most toxic elements containing heavy metal compounds are first washed out of the sludge. The most promising solution to this problem is the introduction into practice of technological systems involving the production of gas from sludge with subsequent combustion of the sludge mass residues.

A particular problem is the penetration of polluted surface runoff into groundwater. Surface runoff from cities is always highly acidic. If there are chalk deposits and limestones under the city, the penetration of acidified waters into them inevitably leads to the emergence of anthropogenic karst. Voids formed as a result of anthropogenic karst directly under the city can pose a serious threat to buildings and structures, therefore, in cities where there is a real risk of its occurrence, a special geological service is needed to predict and prevent its consequences.

7. INFLUENCE OF POLLUTED WATER ON HUMAN HEALTH

Water is a mineral that ensures the existence of living organisms on Earth. Water is part of the cells of any animal and plant. An insufficient amount of water in the human body leads to a disruption in the removal of digestive metabolic products, the blood is depleted of water, and the person gets a fever. Good quality water is an important factor in the health and life of humans and animals.

Today, around the world, the greatest threat to land waters is pollution. Pollution refers to all sorts of physical and chemical deviations from the natural composition of water: frequent and prolonged turbidity, increased temperature, rotting organic substances, the presence of hydrogen sulfide and other toxic substances in water. To all this is added wastewater: domestic, food industry, and agricultural. Often wastewater contains petroleum products, cyanides, salts of heavy metals, chlorine, alkalis, and acids. We should not forget about water contamination with herbicides and radioactive substances. Also today, waters everywhere are polluted by garbage dumped from everywhere. In addition, waste water from fields ends up in water bodies untreated.

As a result of the growth of industry, water bodies and rivers are heavily polluted. Various categories of contaminants can be established depending on the chemical nature that causes them. At petrochemical and chemical industry enterprises, water is used as a solvent, and, as a rule, specific wastewater is formed. In pulp and paper and hydrolysis plants, water is needed as a working medium. In the same capacity, it is used in light and food industries. Among the pollutants from industrial enterprises, the most noticeable is hydrocarbon pollution. The production and widespread use of synthetic surfactants (surfactants), especially in the composition of detergents, causes their entry along with wastewater into many water bodies, including sources of domestic and drinking water supply. The ineffectiveness of water purification from surfactants is the reason for their appearance in drinking water in water supply systems. Surfactants can have a negative impact on water quality, the self-purifying ability of water bodies, and the human body.

Intensive use of land in agriculture has increased the pollution of water bodies by runoff from fields containing chemicals and pesticides. Many pollutants can enter the aquatic environment from the atmosphere through precipitation (for example, lead). The difference between lead concentrations that are harmless to humans and those that cause symptoms of poisoning is the smallest. The nervous and circulatory systems are the first to be affected; children are especially sensitive to lead poisoning.

Chemicals discharged along with wastewater, ending up in rivers and lakes, often change the aquatic environment. Under the influence of such substances, water may become unsuitable for human activity and supporting the life of flora and fauna.

Not only chemicals, but also organic ones can cause great damage. The discharge of organic substances in excessively large quantities leads to severe poisoning of natural waters. People themselves and their activities suffer from the pollution of natural waters. The water supply of populated areas depends entirely on rivers, and the treatment of water with a high content of organic and mineral impurities is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive. Public health is at serious risk. The consequences of certain substances in water, the complete removal of which cannot be ensured by any wastewater treatment system, can affect humans over time. Freshwater pollution is a serious problem for humanity.

8. MICROCLIMATIC CHARACTERISTICS OF MEGA CITIES

Economic activity, the layout of residential areas, and a limited number of green spaces lead to the fact that cities, especially large ones, develop their own microclimate, which generally worsens its environmental characteristics.

On windless days, a temperature inversion layer can form over large cities at an altitude of 100-150 m, which traps polluted air masses over the city territory. This, along with significant thermal emissions and intense heating of stone, brick and reinforced concrete structures, leads to heating of the central areas of the city.

Particular mention should be made of the unfavorable wind conditions that arise in many areas of new buildings with open construction. It is well known that changes in atmospheric pressure, especially its decrease, have a very adverse effect on the well-being of people suffering from cardiovascular diseases. At the same time, in many areas of new buildings, due to the irrational layout of neighborhoods, local drops in atmospheric pressure may be observed at certain points. Thus, in small gaps between two large houses and at certain wind directions, the speed of wind flows can increase significantly. According to the laws of aerodynamics, at these points there is a local drop in atmospheric pressure (up to tens of millibars), which from the inside of the block acquires a pulsating character (frequency about 5-6 Hz). A zone of such pulsating pressure extends 15-20m to the sides from the gap between the houses. A similar, although less clearly defined, situation is observed on the upper floors of buildings with flat roofs. Needless to say, staying in these areas for people suffering from cardiovascular diseases can negatively affect their health.

The solution to this problem constantly requires the implementation of a set of measures in the areas of new buildings to normalize the wind regime in individual microdistricts through a more rational layout of neighborhoods, the construction of wind protection structures and the planting of green spaces.

9. GREEN SPACE IN MEGA CITIES

The presence of green spaces in cities is one of the most favorable environmental factors. Green spaces actively cleanse the atmosphere, condition the air, reduce noise levels, and prevent the occurrence of unfavorable wind conditions; in addition, greenery in cities has a beneficial effect on a person’s emotional state. At the same time, green spaces should be as close as possible to a person’s place of residence, only then can they have the maximum positive environmental effect.

However, in cities, green spaces are distributed extremely unevenly.

Green construction in areas of new buildings also poses considerable difficulties of both a technical and economic nature. The cost of landscaping 1 hectare of territory costs an average of 40 thousand rubles, and the installation of a lawn on the same territory costs 12 thousand rubles. Landscaping small areas costs even more, reaching 20-30 thousand rubles. for 1 m2. It is clear that in the latter case it is cheaper and easier to asphalt the courtyard area than to landscape it. From a technical point of view, green construction is hampered by the clutter of the territory of new buildings and the burial of construction waste in the soil. However, the maximum possible greening of urban areas is one of the most important environmental measures in cities.

10. ECOLOGY OF PRODUCTION AND RESIDENTIAL ENVIRONMENT

Concluding the analysis of the main factors shaping the ecological state in cities, let us dwell on one more problem directly related to human ecology. The factors shaping the urban environment were mentioned above; meanwhile, an adult resident of a large city spends the vast majority of time in confined spaces on a weekday - 9 hours. At work, 10-12 - at home and at least an hour in transport, shops and other public places and, thus, is in direct contact with the city environment for approximately 2-3 hours a day. This fact forces us to pay especially serious attention to the environmental characteristics of industrial and residential environments.

Creating comfortable conditions in confined spaces and, above all, purified conditioned air and a reduced noise level can significantly reduce the negative impact of the urban environment on human health, and these measures require relatively small material costs. However, not enough attention has yet been paid to resolving this issue. In particular, even the latest residential building designs often do not provide design options for installing air conditioners and air filters. In addition, within the living environment itself there are many factors influencing its quality. These include gas kitchens, which significantly increase the pollution of the living environment, low air humidity (in the presence of central heating), the presence of a significant amount of various allergens - in carpets, upholstered furniture and even in heat-insulating materials used in construction, and many other factors. The negative consequences of all of the above should not only be taken into account during new construction and major renovations, but active actions to improve the quality of the living environment from every citizen are also required.

11. MUNICIPAL WASTE PROBLEM

Before the era of agglomeration, waste disposal was facilitated due to the absorption capacity of the environment: land and water. Peasants, sending their products from the field directly to the table, without any processing, transportation, packaging, advertising or distribution network, brought in little waste. Vegetable peelings and the like were fed or used in the form of manure as soil fertilizer for the next year's crop. The movement to cities led to a completely different consumer structure. Products began to be exchanged, and therefore packaged for greater convenience.

Currently, New Yorkers throw away a total of about 24,000 tons of materials per day. This mixture, consisting mainly of a variety of trash, contains metals, glass containers, waste paper, plastic and food scraps. This mixture contains large amounts of hazardous waste: mercury from batteries, phosphorus carbonates from fluorescent lamps, and toxic chemicals from household solvents, paints and wood preservatives.

A city the size of San Francisco has more aluminum than a small bauxite mine, more copper than the average copper replica, and more paper than could be made from a huge amount of wood.

From the beginning of the 70s to the end of the 80s, household waste in Russia doubled. This is millions of tons. The situation today seems to be as follows. Since 1987, the amount of garbage in the country has doubled and amounted to 120 billion tons per year, including industry. Today, Moscow alone throws out 10 million tons of industrial waste, approximately 1 ton for each resident!

As can be seen from the above examples, the scale of environmental pollution from urban waste is such that the severity of the problem is increasing.

12. POSSIBLE WAYS TO SOLUTION PROBLEMS

Around 500 BC, the first known edict was issued in Athens, prohibiting throwing garbage on the streets, providing for the organization of special landfills and ordering garbage collectors to dump waste no closer than a mile from the city.

Since then, the garbage has been stored in various storage facilities in rural areas. As a result of the growth of cities, the available space in their surroundings decreased, and the unpleasant odors and the increased number of rats caused by landfills became unbearable. Free-standing landfills have been replaced by waste storage pits.

About 90% of waste in the United States is still landfilled. But U.S. landfills are filling up quickly, and fears of groundwater contamination make them unwelcome neighbors. This practice has forced people in many localities across the country to stop consuming well water. Wanting to reduce this risk, the city of Chicago declared a moratorium on the development of new landfill sites in August 1984 until a new type of monitoring was developed to monitor the movement of methane, since if its formation is not controlled, it can explode.

Even simple waste disposal is an expensive undertaking. From 1980 to 1987 the cost of waste disposal in the USA increased from 20 to 90 dollars per 1 ton. The upward trend in cost continues today.

In densely populated areas of Europe, the waste disposal method, as requiring too large areas and contributing to groundwater pollution, was preferred to another method - incineration.

The first systematic use of waste ovens was tried in Nottingham, England, in 1874. Incineration reduced the volume of waste by 70-90%, depending on the composition, so it found its way onto both sides of the Atlantic. The populous and most important cities soon introduced experimental stoves. The heat released by burning waste began to be used to generate electrical energy, but not everywhere these projects were able to justify the costs. Large costs for them would be appropriate when there would be no cheap method of disposal. Many cities that used these stoves soon abandoned them due to deteriorating air composition. Waste disposal remains one of the most popular methods of solving this problem.

The most promising way to solve the problem is to recycle urban waste. The following main directions in processing have been developed: organic matter is used to produce fertilizers, textile and paper waste is used to produce new paper, scrap metal is sent for smelting. The main problem in recycling is sorting waste and developing technological processes for recycling.

The economic feasibility of a waste recycling method depends on the cost of alternative methods of waste disposal, the position on the market for recyclable materials and the costs of their processing. For many years, recycling activities were hampered by the belief that any business must be profitable. But what was forgotten was that recycling, compared to landfilling and incineration, is the most effective way to solve the waste problem, since it requires fewer government subsidies. In addition, it saves energy and protects the environment. And as the cost of landfill space rises due to stricter regulations, and furnaces are too expensive and dangerous to the environment, the role of recycling will steadily grow.

CONCLUSION

Nature, untouched by civilization, must remain a reserve, which over time, when most of the globe will serve industrial, aesthetic and scientific purposes, will begin to acquire increasing importance as a standard, a criterion, in particular an aesthetic one; in the future, other currently unknown values ​​may appear these zones. Therefore, a rational, scientifically based approach to the practice of expanding areas of virgin nature and nature reserves is necessary, especially since as the scientific and technological revolution develops, the volume of negative impacts on natural aesthetically valuable objects increases so much that cultural activities aimed at compensating for the damage caused sometimes fail to cope with your tasks.

In these conditions, determining the optimal relationship between primary nature and the cultural landscape is of particular importance. A justified strategy and systematic organization in the interactions of society with the natural environment is a new stage in environmental management. In the conditions of developed socialism, all forms of activity for the aesthetic reconstruction of the natural environment acquire special importance. This is, first of all, the culture of design of areas under production and restoration, the architecture of recreational landscapes, the increase in territories for national parks, nature reserves, the development of the art of creating gardens and parks, small dendro-decoration forms. Of particular importance is the improvement of tourism as a form of recreation for the broad masses of working people.

There is also a gap between increasing the general cultural level of the population and the culture of attitudes towards nature. Therefore, there is a need, firstly, to create a system of environmental measures, secondly, scientific justification and inclusion in this system of criteria for the aesthetic assessment of nature, thirdly, the development of a system of environmental education, improvement of all types of creativity related to nature.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Bystrakov Yu.I., Kolosov A.V. Social ecology. - M., 1988.
2. Milanova E.V., Ryabchikov A.M. Use of natural resources, nature conservation. M.: Higher. school, 1996.280 p.
3. Lvovich N.K. Life in a metropolis. M.: Nauka, 2006.254 p.
4. Dorst S. Before nature dies. M.: Progress, 1978.415 p.
5. Bezuglaya E.Yu., Rastorgueva G.P., Smirnova I.V. What does an industrial city breathe? L.: Gidrometeoizdat, 1991.255 p.

Goals, objectives, epigraph…………….………………………. ……………....2

Relevance…………………………………………… .…………..…2

Introduction…………………………………………………….… …………..3

Nature and man in Ancient Rome……………………….……………….4

Nature and man in Ancient Greece…………………….…………….5

Nature and man in Ancient China…………….………………………6

Nature and man in Ancient Egypt……………….………………….……7

Conclusion………………………………………….…… …………….8

List of references……………………………….…….10

Appendix……………………………………………………… ……..….11

Epigraph: "...More than children about their mother,

citizens should take care of

native land, because she is a goddess -

breadwinner of mortal creatures..."

Project goals: 1. Expand knowledge about the ecology of the Ancient World;
2. Draw conclusions about how the ecology has changed from ancient times to our time

Objectives: 1. study the scientific literature on this issue;

2.protect the project.
Relevance: Many students have no idea about the ecology of the Ancient world, as well as how ancient people found solutions to certain environmental problems.

Introduction

Man is closely connected with the environment by origin, material and spiritual needs. The scale and forms of these connections have steadily grown from the local use of individual natural resources to the almost complete involvement of the resource potential of the planet in the life support of a modern industrialized society.
With the emergence of human civilization, a new factor appeared that influenced the state of the biosphere. It has achieved enormous power in the current century, especially in recent decades. In terms of the scale of their impact on nature, 6 billion of our contemporaries are equal to approximately 60 billion people of the Stone Age, and the amount of energy released by humans may soon become comparable to the energy received by the Earth from the Sun. Man, developing production, remakes nature, adapts it to his needs, and the higher the level of development of production, the more advanced the equipment and technology, the greater the degree of use of the forces of nature and environmental pollution.
Even in Ancient Rome and Athens, the Romans noted the pollution of the waters of the Tiber, and the Athenians noted the pollution of the waters of the Athenian port of Piraeus, which received ships from all over the then ecumene, i.e. territory of the globe inhabited by humans.
Roman settlers in the provinces of Africa complained about the depletion of land due to soil erosion. For many centuries, artificial, i.e. anthropogenic sources of environmental pollution did not have a noticeable impact on environmental processes. The most developed industries in those days were the production of metals, glass, soap, pottery, paints, bread, wine, etc. Compounds such as oxides of carbon, sulfur and nitrogen, vapors of metals, especially mercury, were released into the atmosphere; waste from dyeing and food production was released into water bodies.

Nature and man in Ancient Rome

It all started with a small settlement in Latium, and this settlement of Roma, Rome, extended its power not only to the lands of its neighbors, in Italy, but also to the surrounding vast countries. Even then, in ancient times, contemporaries were looking for an explanation for these impressive achievements: historians and poets saw their reasons mainly in the strength of Roman weapons, in the heroism of the Romans, but they also paid attention and took into account the important role of the geographical conditions of this region, especially the lowlands of Northern Italy , owed his bountiful harvests and wealth.
The climate and temperature of the country are distinguished by great diversity, which causes the greatest changes... in the animal and plant world and in general in everything that is useful for supporting life... Italy also has the following advantage: since the Apennine Mountains stretch along the entire length and leave plains on both sides and fertile hills.
There is not a single part of the country that does not enjoy the riches of the mountainous and lowland areas. To this should be added many large rivers and lakes, and moreover, in many places there are also springs of hot and cold water, created by nature itself for health, and especially an abundance of all kinds of mines.
Without human effort, all the benefits of Italy's geographical position would have remained unrealized and Rome would not have been able to achieve that power and glory. It was believed that the Greeks, when founding cities, achieved their goals with particular success, striving for beauty, inaccessibility, the presence of fertile soil and harbors, while the Romans took care of what the Greeks did not pay attention to: the construction of roads, water pipelines, sewers, through which the city sewage can be dumped into the Tiber. They built roads throughout the country, tearing down hills, and building embankments in hollows, so that their carts could take the cargo of merchant ships.
The water pipelines supply such a huge amount of water that real rivers flow through the city and through the sewers. It was the Romans, according to geographers, who, having owned Italy, managed to turn it into a stronghold of their dominion over the whole world. Mastering nature and adapting its elements to his own needs, ancient man was tirelessly engaged in land reclamation.
In some places for centuries he struggled with excess groundwater, in others, feeling a lack of moisture, he had to “correct” the environment with his own mind and hands - to supply dry areas with water.
Water for quenching thirst, for housekeeping, for treatment - was not always an easily accessible gift of nature or the gods, a source of free benefit.
Initially these were long-term water reservoirs or wells. The choice of one or another device for supplying people with water depended on local geographical conditions.
Large floodplains, places that are flooded during floods, are adjacent to areas where only rainwater is used for irrigation. Therefore, sustainable water supply was a very difficult problem. However, among the most ancient forms of accumulation and collection of water are the construction of grottoes and the installation of sources protected from pollution. The underground springs arranged in this way resembled wells.
Identifying a water source and providing access to it meant solving only half the problem. No less important was the problem of transportation and delivery of water to consumers. Sometimes they brought a large supply of water in large jugs at once.
They also created fenced pools with depressions, from which it was easy to draw water.

Nature and man in Ancient Greece
The devastation that man causes in nature attracted the attention of Greek rulers already at the beginning of the 6th century. BC. Legislator Solon proposed banning the cultivation of steep slopes to prevent soil erosion; Peisistratus encouraged those peasants who planted olive trees, resisting the deforestation of the area and the depletion of pastures.

Two hundred years later, Plato wrote about the destruction inflicted on the Attic land: “And now, as happens with small islands, only the skeleton of a body exhausted by illness remained, compared to its previous state, when all the soft and fat earth was washed away - and only one skeleton is still before us ... Among our mountains there are those that now only raise bees...

There were also many tall trees from among those grown by the hand of man... and vast pastures were prepared for livestock, for the waters poured out every year from Zeus did not perish, as now, flowing from the bare land into the sea, but were absorbed in abundance into the soil, seeped from above into the voids of the earth and were stored in clay beds, and therefore there was no shortage of sources of streams and rivers everywhere. The sacred remains of former springs that still exist testify that our present story about this country is true” (Plato. Critias).

From an environmental perspective, “the transition to agriculture was the most important milestone in human history.” The result was the first form of agricultural environment - the cultivated countryside. In this process, Europe followed the path laid out in Southwest Asia and developed parallel to China and Central America (Mesoamerica). Our subcontinent was not spared all the consequences of such development - a constant surplus of food - and, therefore, the potential for demographic growth; organized, hierarchical society; increased coercion in the economy and in matters of war; the emergence of cities, organized trade and literate culture - and environmental disasters.

The main thing is that special ideas have developed about the relationship of humanity to Nature

Nature and man in Ancient China
The problem of man in ancient Chinese philosophy arises together with philosophy and at each stage of the development of ancient Chinese society is solved as a problem of the development of the relationship of man to man and man to nature. She attaches particular importance to determining the place and functions of man in the world and the criteria for knowing oneself and nature in historical interrelation.
In the ancient Chinese philosophical worldview, mainly 3 trends emerged in solving the human problem:
1. Finding ways to build the right relationship between nature and man as an active subject, when spiritual and behavioral patterns of life are embodied in the chosen ideal of man. Society and nature are presented as one huge house-family and space-state, living according to the law of natural-human “reciprocity” Ren, “justice-duty” Yi, “respect” and “love” Xiao and Ci, elders and younger, bonded in unity by “ritual-etiquette” Lee.
2. Solving the problem of man with an orientation toward steadily moving patterns of nature, when the ideal of a social subject is a man of natural “nature” Zi Zhan (shen zhen “sage-man” in Taoism). Human life is built in harmony with the living rhythms of nature. Man is understood as an eternal spiritual-physical entity living according to the laws of Tao-Te.
3. The third way to solve the problem combines the capabilities of the first and second. Human behavior is the harmonization of natural and social rhythms, the material and spiritual balancing of space and nature. The law of life is the natural human harmony of feelings and thoughts.
Early Confucianism, Taoism and Legalism during the period of “chaos of the Celestial Empire” set the same task: to find ways to establish harmony between nature and man. In Confucianism, interest falls on the self-conscious person who observes the ritual social and natural tradition and follows the precepts of the “preborn” in behavior and history. Consciousness here moves from nature to man, from the “constancy” of the past fixed in natural rhythms to the present. In Taoism, searching interest is directed to nature, consciousness moves from man to nature. The human subject here trusts nature with body and soul and identifies himself with it. In legalism, the center of gravity falls on the subject who organizes the life of society and nature according to the law of the Fa, consciousness is concentrated in the center of the collision of natural and human norms of life. In these indicated directions, ancient Chinese philosophy, the anthropological problem is closely related to nature, on whose body all human meanings of life are objectified. Moreover, with the general spiritualization and humanization of nature, the latter is perceived as a subject and direct participant in history. There are deep economic rationales associated with this - the almost complete dependence of the Chinese agricultural community on nature. As a result, in the minds of the ancient Chinese, nature is higher than man.
In addition, the original theoretical principles of Confucianism, Taoism and Legalism go back to the time of direct identification of man with a natural thing (tribal society), which also left its mark on the philosophical style of thinking. As a result, teachings about man in the ancient Chinese worldview take the form of teachings about nature. Consequently, when considering the problem of man in ancient Chinese philosophy, it is necessary to turn to the teachings about the origin of nature and the types of its structural order.

Nature and man in Ancient Egypt

In ancient Egypt, information about environmental knowledge goes back to sources associated with the life of the remarkable thinker and healer Imhotep (about 2800-2700 BC). In surviving ancient Egyptian papyri dating back to 2500-1500. BC, also presents thoughts of an ecological nature about life, nature and health, about the problems of death, which, according to scientists of our time, are striking in their exclusively scientific accuracy and clarity of presentation in the absence of religious and mystical layers. For several thousand years, Egyptian civilization lived and worked cheerfully, with an increase in vital energy. The source of vitality and such a long prosperity of Egypt lies in the attitude of the Egyptians to the world and its nature, in their concepts of conscience and soul, of life on Earth and the destinies of people in inextricable connection and harmony with the environment.

Conclusion

During the project, I learned a lot about the ecology of Ancient civilizations, and also expanded my knowledge of how certain environmental problems of those times were solved.

Different times have their own problems. Now there are many more of them and they are several times larger.
Even ancient philosophers wrote about how important it is to protect nature, we should not forget this even now.

Bibliography

1. Vinnichuk L. “People, customs and customs of Ancient Greece and Rome” Trans. from Polish VC.

2. Ronina. – M.: Higher. school 1988 – 496 p.

3.Internet

Application

Maps of ancient civilizations

Ancient Rome

Ancient Greece

Ancient China

Ecological disasters of antiquity.

The word “ecology” is most often used not in a strict sense, but in a narrower one, denoting the relationship between man and the environment, those changes that occur due to anthropogenic pressure in the biosphere, as well as the problems of people that have their source in the forces of nature. People often tend to idealize the “bright past”, and, conversely, experience apocalyptic sentiments in relation to the “foggy future”.

Fortunately or not, it shows us that “every century is an iron age,” and if we are talking about ecology, then environmental disasters on a regional scale, at least, took place even before the birth of Christ. Since ancient times, man has done nothing but change, transform the nature around him, and since ancient times, the fruits of his activities have returned to him like a boomerang. Typically, anthropogenic changes in nature were superimposed on the natural rhythms themselves, strengthening unfavorable trends and preventing the development of favorable ones. Because of this, it is often difficult to distinguish between the negative influences of civilization and natural phenomena. Even today, disputes continue, for example, over whether ozone holes and global warming are a consequence of natural processes or not, but the negativity of human activity is not questioned; the debate can only be about the degree of influence.

It is possible (although this fact has not been absolutely proven) that man made a great contribution to the emergence of the largest desert on the planet, the Sahara. Frescoes and rock paintings found there and dating back to the 6th-4th millennium BC show us the rich animal world of Africa. The frescoes depict buffalos, antelopes, and hippos. As studies show, desertification of the savannah on the territory of modern Sahara began about 500,000 years ago, but the process took on a landslide character from 3 BC. e. The nature of life of the nomadic tribes of the South Sahara, the way of life, which has not changed too much since then. As well as data on the economy of the ancient inhabitants of the North of the continent, it is possible to assume that slash-and-burn agriculture and cutting down trees contributed to the drainage of rivers in the territory of the future Sahara. And excessive grazing of livestock led to the hooves of fertile soils, the result of which was a sharp increase in soil erosion and desertification of the land.

The same processes destroyed several large oases in the Sahara and a strip of fertile lands north of the desert after the arrival of the Arab nomads there. The advance of the Sahara to the south these days is also associated with the economic activities of indigenous peoples. “The goats ate Greece” - this saying has been known since ancient times. Goat farming has destroyed tree vegetation in Greece, and the goats' hooves have trampled the soil. The process of soil erosion in the Mediterranean in ancient times was 10 times higher in cultivated areas. There were huge landfills near ancient cities. In particular, near Rome, one of the landfill hills was 35 meters high and 850 meters in diameter. Rodents and beggars feeding there spread diseases. Discharges of waste onto city streets, discharges of city wastewater into reservoirs, from where the same residents then took water. About 1 million people lived in Rome, so you can imagine how much garbage they produced.

Deforestation along river banks has turned once navigable water streams into shallow and drying up streams. Irrational reclamation led to soil salinization, the use of the plow turned over layers of soil (it was actively used since the beginning of our era), deforestation led to massive soil degradation, and, according to many researchers, led to the decline of ancient agriculture, the economy as a whole and the collapse of the entire ancient culture .

Similar phenomena occurred in the East. One of the largest and oldest cities of the Harrapan civilization (II - III millennium BC), Monhefno-Daro was flooded with water several times, more than 5 times, and each time for more than 100 years. It is believed that the floods were caused by silting of water channels due to inept land reclamation. If in India the imperfection of irrigation systems led to flooding, then in Mesopotamia it led to soil salinization.

The creation of powerful irrigation systems led to the emergence of vast salt marshes due to disruption of the water-salt balance. Finally, due to environmental disasters caused by human activity, several highly developed cultures simply died. This fate befell, for example, the Mayan civilization in Central America and the culture of Easter Island. The Mayan Indians, who built many stone cities, used hieroglyphics, knew mathematics and astronomy better than their European contemporaries (first millennium AD), subjected the soil to such exploitation that the depleted land around the cities could no longer feed the population. There is a hypothesis that this caused population migration from place to place and led to the degradation of culture.

On Easter Island (Rapanui) in the Pacific Ocean, one of the most interesting cultures of the ancient world mysteriously arose and died. Rich in flora and fauna, the island was able to become the home of a highly developed culture. The inhabitants of Easter knew how to write and made multi-day voyages. But at some point (probably around 1000 AD), the island began mass production of huge stone idols, possibly representing tribal leaders. During the construction of the statues and their delivery to the site (there are only about 80 finished statues, weighing up to 85 tons), the forests of the island were reduced to nothing. The lack of wood prevented the construction of figures and the production of tools. Connections between the island of Rapa Nui and other Pacific islands sharply decreased, the population became impoverished, and society degraded.

And lastly, Ecocide is a word that came into our circulation relatively recently, but we can find examples of ecocide back in antiquity. Thus, the warriors of Genghis Khan, who invaded Turkestan and Western Asia, destroyed irrigation structures there, which in particular caused salinization and desertification of lands in the area of ​​​​ancient Kharezm, even the Amu Darya turned west because of this, which caused the decline of the Central Asian oasis of civilization. But much more often, environmental problems arise from human economic activities.

Bibliography

Yuri Dorokhov. Ecological disasters of antiquity .

To prepare this work, materials from the site http://eco.km.ru/ were used

What does the history of religions teach us? That they fanned the flames of intolerance everywhere, strewn the plains with corpses, watered the earth with blood, burned cities, devastated states; but they never made people better.

Ancient civilizations that existed thousands of years ago determined the cultural and scientific development of mankind. Looking at the details of ancient civilizations, one can see the development and decline of various cultures, moral values ​​and scientific achievements of antiquity, which influenced the development of all mankind.

The earliest settlements along the Tiber River in the area that later became a city Rome, most likely ruled by a chieftain or warlord with the support of the heads of leading families within or near the settlement. Virgil and other epic writers tell us that the city of Rome was founded by Romulus, and that he killed his brother Remus in order to ridicule his pomerium, or sacred boundary of the city which he founded. This city was named after its legendary founder, Rome, and we have an appropriately heroic beginning for the city that once ruled the entire Western world. Environmental problems of ancient agricultural civilizations. Writers of later eras, including many Romans, would derive quite a bit from the legendary part of the city's founding story where Romulus kills his brother, and say that since Rome was founded in an act of bloodshed, thus bloodshed would become part of the Roman heritage.

During the Dark Ages, Greek settlements spread from the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula to the western coast of Asia Minor (present-day territory of Turkey), covering the islands of the Aegean Sea. By the beginning of the 8th century BC. e. the Greeks began to restore trade relations with other nations, exporting olive oil, wine, pottery and metal products. Thanks to the recent invention of the alphabet by the Phoenicians, writing, lost during the Dark Ages, began to be revived. However, the established peace and prosperity led to a sharp increase in the population, and it became increasingly difficult to feed it due to the limited agricultural base.

Ancient China arose on the basis of Neolithic cultures that developed in the 5th - 3rd millennia BC. e. in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. The Yellow River basin became the main territory for the formation of the ancient civilization of China, which developed for a long time in conditions of relative isolation. Only from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. the process of expanding the territory begins in a southerly direction, first to the area of ​​the Yangza basin, and then further to the south. At the end of our era, the state of Ancient China extended far beyond the Yellow River basin, although the northern border of the ethnic territory of the ancient Chinese remained almost unchanged.

During its two thousand year history, the ancient city Babylon twice became the capital of a great empire, fabulous in its splendor. The Babylonians also managed to achieve significant scientific and intellectual progress. Compared to the first Mesopotamian cities in Sumer and Akkad, Babylon was young: the initial mentions of it date back to the 23rd century BC. e. Environmental problems of ancient agricultural civilizations. It acquired political significance only after 1900 BC. e., when the Amorites, an alliance of Semitic tribes, captured Sumer. Within a few years, Babylon became the capital of the small but constantly growing Amorite kingdom, which, under the reign of King Hammurabi (1792-50 BC), became an empire that included all of southern Mesopotamia, as well as part of Assyria in the north.

Civilization Ancient Egypt existed for almost 3,000 years, leaving descendants with majestic monuments and fabulous treasures. Egypt became the cradle of the second (after Sumerian) great civilization in world history. It originated in the Nile Valley several centuries later than the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia, which had an undoubted influence on the early development of Ancient Egypt.

Passions are the enemies of peace, but without them there would be no art or sciences in this world, and everyone would be dozing naked on a pile of their own dung.