CASPIAN SEA PLAN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 56, 8 March 1946, Page 5

CASPIAN SEA PLAN

DIVERSION OF RIVERS TO STOP EVAPORATION Recd. 7 p.m. London, March 7. Russia is reported to be preparing to resume its great plan to save the Caspian Sea from slow evaporation, says the “Daily Mail.” Involved in the plan are two rivers—the Pechora, which flows north into the Arctic Ocean near the Urals, and the Avychegda, which joins the Advina to flow into the White Sea at Archangel. In one area all that decides whether the two rivers flow north or south is an almost imperceptible curve of the earth’s surface. The Russians here propose to reverse their course by the erection of two large dams. They will then flow into the Volga and the added volume would counter-balance what the Caspian loses by evaporation. This part of the plan is known as the Greater Volga Plan, which the Russ ans suspended in 1939. It is proposed, by constructing dams and canals, to connect the Caspian by navigable waterways with the Baltic at Leningrad (2500 miles) and Archangel (3000 miles).

The Caspian Sea covers an estimated 170,000 square miles in area and is 680 miles long from north to south, and varying from 130 and 270 miles in breadth. It is on the boundary between Europe and Asia. From the west and north is is fed by the Volga, the Ural, the Terek, the Sulak, and the Samur rivers, and from the south and east by the Kura and Aras. The surface lies about 90ft. below sea level.