Impact+of+the+Drought

=Impacts of the Drought=


 * Haze and Forest fires
 * Health issues
 * Increase of Food Prices
 * Advantage for certain sectors

Haze and Forest fires


Due to high temperature and low humidity, forest fires can easily be triggered if there are excessive heat energy focused at a point. This phenomena not only occurred in Russia. For instance, in quite similar climate countries such as the United States, forest fires are very common during the summer especially in inland forests in California. Russia is one of the main exporter of timber used for the manufacture of paper products, just behind Canada. The forest fires occurred in the Boreal Forests ( a.k.a. Taiga ) caused a lot of timber productions come to halt, as well as diminished the amount of these natural resources.



Besides, in terms of ecology and environment, forest fire causes the drastic increase of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere. The unbalanced proportion of carbon dioxide may further lead to problems such as acidic rain, which corrodes buildings as well as cause skin cancer.

The burning process also cause the smog phenomena in Moscow, which was ten times higher than safety limit. Smog is caused the mixture of smoke, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and other components such as ashes that mix together due to large amount of combustion in an area. The mixture can react with sunlight in the atmosphere, forming photochemical smog. This can cause health problems as it can lead to respiratory related diseases such as emphysema, bronchitis and asthma.



Health Issues
Based on the data in the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Moscow, some 55736 people died during the drought. This is due to water related issues. During the drought period, water evaporated at a faster rate than usual. The lack of water supply in certain drought areas cause people living in these areas suffered from thirst. People in Russia also suffered from heat stroke as the temperature rose to a record high of 37.5 degree Celsius, slightly higher than the human's body temperature.

Forest fires that occur near Chernobyl also raised concern from environmentalists. Radioactive materials which were exposed to the atmosphere might rise to the lithosphere,causing other radioactive related diseases endemic in the Caucasus-Ukraine region. Besides, radioactive materials might cause crops from the Caucasus-Ukraine region to have danger levels of radioactive substances.

The smog phenomena mentioned above may also bring harm to peoples's health at the same time due to excess inhalation. For instance, emphysema, bronchitis and asthma.

Increase of Food Prices
During the Russian drought, there is a lack of water as rivers and lakes dry up. People and animals die from dehydration and crops and destroyed.

After weeks of unrelenting heat and lack of water supply forced Moscow to halt wheat exports for the rest of this year and sent prices surging more than 90 percent since June to a two-year high, traders are now looking to the U.S. Agriculture Department's monthly report as the most authoritative gauge of market fundamentals. The worst drought for generations in Russia has already caused a 50% jump in the price of wheat, the world's most-consumed cereal, since June, and last week president Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would freeze grain exports.



It is expected to cut its forecast of the world wheat crop by 11 million tonnes or 1.6 percent from last month's report, according to a Reuters poll of traders. It would be the third downgrade in three months by USDA, which often is cautious about sweeping revisions. Since May, USDA has trimmed its forecast by 11 million tonnes, to 661 million tonnes for 2010/11. For the first time in three years, the world would eat more wheat than it grows. As a result, reserves would fall to 187 million tonnes, down 3 percent, by the end of 2010/11, USDA estimated in July.

Not only wheat was affected, barley export also diminished during the low precipitation season. Consequently, t he price of barley has more than doubled over the past six weeks due to continued fears over the drought. Russia is the world's second largest producer of barley after the EU and the cereal crop is used by many farmers as animal feed. The recent price rise could also have a possible knock-on effect on the cost of beer as a significant proportion of the remainder of barley production goes into the brewing trade on both sides of the Atlantic.

With a downfall in exports, the Russian Federation's economy faced resistance in the rise of the Russian Ruble.

Advantage for Certain Sectors
Some service operators even took advantage of the public during the drought season. For example, taxi drivers in Moscow had their customers pay extra charges for air conditioning. And yet, there was not any legislation to stop them from doing such immoral act.

Go to Measures Taken by Russia

External links: USDA to gauge Russia drought impact on world crops Analysis: Russian drought to put a brake on rouble's rise Ban on food exports Death due to Drought