Home – Home – Jornals – Geography and Natural Resources 2020 number 2

An assessment is made of the lake resources of Russia in particular regions identified on the basis of the genetic principle, i. e. an approximate even-aged origin of most lake basins within the territory. It was determined that a little less than two-thirds of all water bodies are located on the coastal plains of the seas of the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, which account for one-fifth of the country’s area. The climatic conditions of the coastal zone are favorable for the existence of lakes, most of which owe their origin to relatively recent (on a geological time scale) marine transgressions. The total water surface area of the coastal plains makes up about 40 % of the total area of all water bodies of Russia; however, they contains only 1.3 % of the total water volume of the country because most of these water bodies are shallow. The territories that were previously under the cover of the Valdai glaciation occupy about 4 % of the country, their water surface area is about 18 %, and the number of water bodies located there makes up 6 % of the total number for Russia. The lakes remaining on the site of the Valdai glaciation contain more than 5 % of the total volume of the country’s waters. About 90 % of the entire lake waters are concentrated in mountainous regions, where a significant part of the deepest and most capacious lakes including Baikal are located, but the number of water bodies is only 5.6 % of the total number in the country, and the water surface area is 13 %. It is shown that since the origin of the lakes is primarily determined by the geological history of the region, their distribution over the territory is rather weakly dependent on climatic factors. An increased lake percentage is observed in regions that had ridded themselves of sea waters and glacial cover at the interface of the Lake Pleistocene and the Holocene; within these regions, changes in lake percentage are governed by differences in sculptural landforms.