What is the "black storm", that is, the land problem suffered by the former Soviet Union?

The black storm started at 1954. The former Soviet Union mobilized a large number of labor forces in Kazakhstan, Siberia, Urals, Volga River and parts of the North Caucasus, carried out large-scale immigration and reclaimed a large number of wasteland. During the period of 10, the cultivated area was nearly 60 million hectares. In the early years, due to the original fertility and good climate of newly reclaimed land, the grain output of the Soviet Union increased greatly. However, those who violate the laws of nature will be punished in the end. Due to the abuse of land in the process of reclamation in the former Soviet Union, the farming system was chaotic, there was no shelter belt, and at the same time, years of drought caused serious wind erosion in the newly reclaimed land. Since 1960, these areas have been frequently attacked by black storms, which have caused a large area of crops to be destroyed, and a large number of newly reclaimed land has become barren sand dunes, and many newly reclaimed land has to be abandoned. 1In March and April, 1960, the newly reclaimed areas in the former Soviet Union suffered two black storms. These two black storms swept across a vast area in the southern part of the Russian steppe, causing soil particles, seeds and even seedlings and large pieces of soil on newly reclaimed land to be blown to pieces. The intensity of the black storm is the strongest here, so the disaster is also the most serious. The first black storm started on March 16 and blew for a whole week until March 23. At that time, the wind speed was amazing, reaching about 12- 15 meters per second. On the steppes of Kazakhstan and Siberia, the climate is very dry. Whenever spring and the turn of spring and summer, strong winds often blow here. Large-scale land reclamation has destroyed vegetation, and the soil surface of newly reclaimed land has become very loose. This time, the wind roared and took away a lot of loose topsoil. In an instant, dust was flying all over the sky, and the blue sky was shrouded in dark dust and fog. Under the attack of this huge black storm, the cultivated land of the farm that has been in operation for many years was completely destroyed in a few days. Many farms don't harvest grain or even seeds. It never rains but it pours. Less than a month later, the black madman came again. The black storm in April is more serious than that in March. Although the strongest storm is still in the Russian steppe, the disasters in other areas are equally tragic and the scope of being ravaged is wider. Over the villages and cities of Ukraine, black dust turned the originally clean and sunny sky into a hazy black fog. People walking in the street are flashing flashlights, cars on the road are flashing lights, and thick dust is accumulated in houses and offices. In the vast areas of the western part of the former Soviet Union, even Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Yugoslavia, which are adjacent to the Soviet Union, are filled with dust and fog, like dark clouds. In Belarus and eastern Poland, dust blocks the sun, and visibility is extremely poor. No buildings can be seen for several meters. The wind carried the dust into the sky, and the black dust formed a black cloud at the top of the mountain, with a cloud thickness of1500-2500m. According to the disaster statistics of the former Soviet authorities, two black storms in 1960 caused more than 4 million hectares of spring sowing crops in the former Soviet reclamation area. A large amount of sand silted up many irrigation canals and destroyed a large area of crops and fields. Many fertile farmland topsoil has been scraped away, and some of the scraped topsoil has a thickness of 300-500mm. It is estimated that the total amount of sand blown into the sky on 4 million hectares of cultivated land is about 960 million tons to 65.438+0.28 billion tons. Hakka grassland is the hardest hit area. The black storm scraped off all the topsoil of 6.5438+0.5 million hectares of cultivated land here, and the sandy soil filled up the irrigation network of 654.38+0.5 kilometers, and at the same time filled up the roads and gullies along the roads. Nature's revenge on mankind is merciless. Three years later, there was another black storm in these newly reclaimed areas. Although this black storm was not as serious as the two times of 1960, it had a wider impact. The western and eastern parts of Kazakhstan and Siberia belong to arid and semi-arid grassland areas. The frost-free period in these areas is extremely short, with an average of only about 1 10 days. In most areas, the annual rainfall is less than 300mm, and the rainfall during the growing period of crops is the most145 mm. The climate here belongs to a strong continental climate. Whenever summer comes, the weather is extremely hot, often accompanied by strong winds, which leads to extremely rapid evaporation of water and severe dry weather. In the newly reclaimed area of Kazakhstan, there are 7 years of long-term drought in 10. In addition to drought, there is also a disastrous climate-strong wind. In the 1 year in these areas, there are only 50-60 days without wind on average. It is often windy in late winter, late spring and early summer, and the wind speed sometimes exceeds 20 meters per second. 1963, the drought here is more serious. In April, May and June, not a drop of rain fell in the newly reclaimed area. In this severe drought, strong winds blew again, and the dry topsoil was blown up in a large area, sweeping the whole prairie and forming a strong black storm disaster. The disaster caused by the black storm is enormous. In the newly reclaimed area of Kazakhstan, the affected area reached 20 million hectares. In Pavel Roda alone, 65,438+000 hectares of crops were seriously damaged, many of which were completely destroyed, and more than 200,000 hectares of cultivated land were covered with thick sand. After the black storm, more than 800 thousand hectares of cultivated land in this state were abandoned. Just like the cause of the black storm in the western United States, there are some fundamental human factors in the newly reclaimed areas of the former Soviet Union in addition to the harsh climatic conditions. The first is the abuse of land. The former Soviet Union did not establish a scientific farming system on newly reclaimed land, but sowed spring wheat year after year. Some newly reclaimed land has no crop rotation system and fallow land. It has sown a single crop for six years in a row and squeezed out food from the wasteland indefinitely, which consumes the productivity of the land, causes serious damage to the soil structure and leads to serious wind erosion of the newly reclaimed land. At the same time, in order to expand grain production, land unsuitable for growing grain has also been reclaimed indiscriminately. After a lot of cultivated land was destroyed, it became a pasture. Thousands of farms in Baju Roda, Kazakstan and Dezhou, Custa have changed to animal husbandry or forest animal husbandry according to local natural conditions. Because of this land abuse, soil fertility is destroyed and easily eroded by strong winds. The second is to use old farm tools. Dry and windy climate and rapid evaporation of soil moisture are important reasons for wind erosion. Therefore, it is necessary to keep the water in the soil as much as possible during farming, that is, to keep the water in the deep soil and the surface soil from evaporating. The soil in newly reclaimed areas is mostly black or dark chestnut sand or sandy loam. In its tillage layer, the soil particles are large, the soil is loose, and the water is easy to permeate and evaporate. This situation is inherently flawed, but the former Soviet Union used old farm tools in the process of reclamation, which made matters worse. They used old-fashioned farm tools to dig deep and plow repeatedly, so that all the deep wet soil in the field was turned up. In this way, the soil lost its water-attached substances, became looser, and wind erosion became more serious. It is said that in 1957, Kazakhstan Agricultural Machinery Research Institute developed a set of spring rough tillage methods suitable for wind erosion areas. In order to better maintain the moisture in the soil, a bottomless plow was used to subsoil the soil. To this end, the government also generally prohibits the use of wall plows and old agricultural tools in new cultivated land and leisure land. However, the use of no-tillage method has brought some new problems, especially the difficulty of operation, which can not be popularized in a large area, and the problem of soil and water conservation has not been solved for a long time. In addition, the shelterbelt was destroyed. With the continuous expansion of newly reclaimed land, trees are cut down, turf is cleared, and the original vegetation coverage is less and less, resulting in more and more serious soil wind erosion. For example, the grassland in Custa has a vegetation coverage area of 90% before reclamation and less than 10% after reclamation, so the soil wind erosion here is very serious. Preventing soil wind erosion mainly depends on virgin forests and artificial shelterbelts. However, after large-scale land reclamation, the forest area did not increase, but decreased. Please look at the situation in the following areas: Of the 60 million hectares of newly reclaimed frontier land in Kazakhstan, the forest area only accounts for 2%, but it is less than before reclamation. 4.7%? Hectares; In Rostov state, the shelterbelt area of 1960 is only 5 14000 hectares, accounting for only 0.9% of the cultivated land area, and the distribution is extremely uneven, and there are almost no shelterbelts in many areas; In the North Caucasus, people generally do not pay enough attention to the phenomenon of soil wind erosion, not only the afforestation scale is small, but also the phenomenon of deforestation is quite serious. In this case, it is inevitable to be punished by nature. The occurrence of black storm disasters in North America and the western part of the former Soviet Union has revealed a truth to the world: if human beings want to avoid retaliation from nature, they must act according to objective laws. In other words, human beings should consciously protect their living environment while demanding from nature, otherwise they will suffer the consequences.