Ob: the fall of the river and its brief description

This largest water artery of Russia originates in the Altai, and then carries its waters to the north, to the Kara Sea. In this article you will find a brief description of the Ob river as planned. In addition, you will also learn how to correctly calculate the fall and bias for any watercourse.

River Ob: the Kara Sea basin

The mighty river of Western Siberia flows to the Arctic Ocean, taking in a myriad of tributaries of various sizes. As soon as they did not call it different nationalities: Kwai, Eme, Salya-Yam, Ob. The fall of the river, it is worth noting, is quite low. This is explained by the fact that all of it, including the source place, is located in the flat territories. Therefore, the elevations along the channel are insignificant.

A brief description of the Ob river can be presented according to the plan in the following form:

1. Length and area of the catchment area.
2. Etymology of the name.
3. The main tributaries of the Ob River.
4. The source and mouth of the watercourse.
5. Ob: the fall of the river and its deviation.
6. Nutrition and water regime features.
7. The organic world of the river.
8. Navigation and shipping.
9. Large cities along the river bed.

Brief description of the river

The length of the Ob River is 3,650 km. It collects its water from a huge area of almost 3 million square kilometers (this, by the way, is greater than the territory of Kazakhstan!). Not for nothing that almost all the existing names of this waterway can be translated as a "big river". But the word "ob" (modern name) has Iranian roots and is translated as "water". The fact is that Western Siberia was inhabited for a long time by Iranian-speaking tribes, who probably gave the name to this river.

The place where the Katun and Biya merge is considered to be the source of the Ob. And it carries its waters to the Kara Sea. In this case, the river forms an extensive delta, which ends with the Ob Bay. The main tributaries of the Ob are Irtysh, Vasyugan, Vakh, Ket, Chulym. It is interesting to note that the Irtysh even exceeds the length of the Ob.

Ob's food is mostly snow. The period of high water (in different parts of the riverbed) lasts from early April to early May. During the spring autopsy, large ice congestion is very often observed on the river, as a result of which a unique situation can be observed in the spring. The water level in some parts of the main river temporarily increases, as a result of which some of its tributaries may temporarily change their direction.

Fishing on the river is developed from the most ancient times. Perch, pike perch, pike, burbot, roach, sterlet, sturgeon and carp - that's what you can catch in the Ob today. In all, more than 50 species of fish now inhabit the river. Half of them are of industrial importance.

The history of navigation along this waterway originates from the middle of the XIX century. In 1844 the first steamer was launched here. And by the end of the century there were already 120 steamers on the river, which carried out regular passenger flights.

To date, there are 14 cities on the river. The most important river ports are in Barnaul, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Omsk, Tyumen and Khanty-Mansiysk.

Ob: the fall of the river and its slope

As already mentioned at the beginning of the article, the river flows through the flat expanses of Russia. How can you determine the fall of the Ob River? For this you need to know only two values. First, the absolute height of the mouth (in meters). And secondly, the height of the source point of the Ob River.

The fall of the river is nothing but the difference of absolute heights between the points of its source and mouth. Obviously, this indicator directly depends on the nature and dissection of the terrain of a particular locality. The maximum fall of the river will be typical for the rivers of mountainous areas.

Calculate the slope of any watercourse is also not difficult. To do this, you need to know the length of the river, and then divide the value of the fall of the river (in meters) by its total length (in kilometers). Thus, we will get a value that actually shows how many meters the river "falls" with each kilometer of its length.

We calculate these indicators for the Ob. It is known that the absolute height of the source of the river is 164 meters. Since the Ob, in fact, falls into the ocean, the estuary is at a mark of zero meters. Thus, the total fall of the river is 164 meters.

Now there is nothing easier than to calculate Ob's bias. It is necessary to divide 164 meters by the length of the river (3650 km). And we get a value of 4.5 cm / km. In other words, for each kilometer of its length the channel of the Ob River "falls" by 4.5 centimeters.

Finally...

The Ob is the largest river in Siberia, which regularly carries its waters along the flat expanses of Siberia to the Kara Sea. The length of the river is 3560 kilometers, and its total fall is quite small at this, and is only 164 meters.