Former environmental minister vows massive river diversion plan

The report on the proposal is made by the Institute of Water Problems with the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and will be presented on December 2, according to the information agency TASS. 

The water will be pumped in a pipeline from the Pechora and Northern Dvina rivers, which flow into the Arctic Ocean, and will be routed through the Kama and Volga rivers, then through the Volga-Don Canal to the Azov upland and Donbas. 

The Ukrainian region, currently illegally occupied by Russian forces, is suffering from a lack of freshwater. Ongoing climate change only worsens droughts in Donbas year by year, the report points out. 

Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, science director of the Institute of Water Problems at the RAS is the one who is bringing forward the proposal. He has held several key positions, including as Minister of Natural Resources in the period of 1992-1996. 

Danilov-Danilyan has also been the Chair of the State Committee for Environmental Protection.

"I will convince everyone that this needs to be taken seriously," he said to TASS. 

He estimates that construction of a pipeline from the Pechora river basin and the Northern Dvina will take five to seven years. The idea includes setting up gas-powered generators to pump the water through the pipelines. 

The distance from the Pechora river to Donbas is about 2,000 kilometres. From the upper Northern Dvina (Kotlas), the distance is about 1,400 km. 

However, pipelines do not have to be that long. What is needed, the scientists outline, is to pump water from the northern watershed into rivers that flow south. In European Russia, that means building pipelines from the north to the Kama and Volga rivers. And then another pipeline from north of Volgograd to Donbas in occupied Ukrainian territory. 

Mitigate the effects of global warming 

The study by the Russian Academy of Science says a side-effect of pumping massive amount of fresh water to the south could help mitigate the effects of global warming, helping Arctic marine ecosystems. 

"It is well known that the north is warming, and the ecosystems of the Arctic Ocean are being restructured. If restructured. If we take away some of the warm water that the rivers carry there, we facilitate their adaptation by slowing the warming process." 

Soviet era plans 

The idea on reverse the flow of water from the north to the south is not new. 

In 1971, the Soviet Union detonated three nuclear devices buried underground west of the city of Perm in the South Urals. The blasts, named project “Taiga”, were part of a study aimed at creating a possible canal that should connect the Pechora River with the Volga. 

The explosions were not very successful and the plan was ultimately shelved.

Another ambitious Soviet era grand plan was developed for Siberian rivers with the idea to divert water from the Ob and Irtysh rivers southward via a massive canal system to the Aral Sea basin. This project was designed to improve agriculture in Central Asia, but was officially abandoned in 1986 due to public opposition, environmental concerns, and resource limitations.

According to Danilov-Danilyan, reversing fresh water from Siberia to the Aral region of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan is currently not relevant. The two countries are not part of Russia.

"It involves international issues that aren't easy to resolve," Danilov-Danilyan said to TASS. "We first need to create a Russian water transfer project."

The Russian Academy of Science, though, does not exclude that the grand "Siberia river reversal" project one day will see a rebirth. 

A modern version of the open canal concept proposed in the 1970s would involve laying more than 2,000 kilometres of plastic piping across rugged terrain from the Ob river in the Novosibirsk region into Central Asia, news online RBC reported with reference to the same study by the Academy of Science. 

The Siberia-Asia project has an estimated price tag of $100 billion. Construction would take at least a decade and could transfer up to 22 cubic kilometres of water annually to Central Asian countries.

The cost of building pipelines and pumping stations for reversing water from the Arkhangelsk region to Ukraine is unknown.