Деловой иностранный язык (английский). Учебное пособие по направлению подготовки 20.04.02 Природообустройство и водопользование, магистерская программ

and install water-saving devices in loo cisterns. But such exhortations won't work if consumers have no financial incentive to curb water use. At present only 28% of homes have a charging meter.

So, are meters the answer?

Meters are compulsory on all new' houses and one water company, Folkestone & Dover, has applied to the Government for emergency powers allowing it to require every customer to have a water meter. Livingstone would like to adopt a similar approach for London, and if rain levels don't return to normal other authorities would follow suit. But meters are expensive to install and politically would prove highly unpopular to people with large families or large lawns. In the light of such concerns, Elliot Morley, the environment minister, has ruled out a general move towards compulsory metering.

Vocabulary drought - засуха fringe - край affect - влиять blame - винить leakage - утечка

creep - ползти; зд. появляться embark on - начинать

fault - вина

concreting - бетонирование

flood plain - заливной луг patio - внутренний дворик sewer - сточная труба

sprinkler - разбрызгиватель resurgence - возрождение

soar - стремительно повышаться exhortation - призыв

61

hosepipe - шланг ban - запрет

imminent - надвигающийся loo - туалет

incentive - стимул

emergency powers - чрезвычайные полномочия

follow suit - следовать примеру

6.Answer the questions on the text

1.What are the reasons for water shortage in Britain?

2.What measures do water companies take to reduce the loss of way How do changes in lifestyle add to the problem?

3.Could meters help to solve the problem?

7.Fill in the gaps with the suitable prepositions. Translate the sentences

8. Translate the sentences into English

4.Бетонирование полей и заливных лугов усложнило вывод запасов подземных вод на поверхность.

5.Намерение Джона Прескогга построить 720,000 новых домов на юго-востоке Англии приведет к стремительному росту спроса на использование воды.

62

6.Потребителей убеждают принимать душ вместо ванны, отключать шланги, экономить воду при мойке автомобиля, поливе газонов и устанавливать водосберегающие устройства в сливных бачках.

7.Дорогая установка водных счётчиков крайне непопулярна среди людей, у которых большие семьи и обширные газоны.

8.Discuss the text

Water Pollution

One of the most urgent problems in the world today is the shortage of clean water. Access to clean water is the basic human right. But acid rain, industrial pollution and sewage dumping, oil spills have made water undrinkable.

According to the UN, nowadays 40 per cent of the world have no access to clean water or sanitation, and as industrial and agricultural development everywhere in the world escalates, the situation is deteriorating. Worldwide demand for water is doubling every 21 years, more in some regions. Supply can't remotely keep pace with demand, because of growing population, especially in the third world countries. Water shortage plague almost every country in North Africa and the Middle East, Northern China, Western and Southern India, a part of Pakistan, South America and much of Mexico all face water scarcity. Waterborne diseases account for 80% infections in the developing world. More than 3 min people die every year from unsafe water.

The last century has seen world demand for water increase 7 times. The demand for water in many countries simply outruns the supply. Water is likely to become a growing source of tension and competition between nations. Most of estimated 3 billion people to be added in the next 50 years will be bom in the countries already experiencing water shortages. There are large differences in per capita water consumption between different countries. In some countries people are surviving on the daily ration equal to or less than a bucket of water,

63

while average American uses 1000 liters of water a day. A shortage of drinking water could affect one-third of the world by 2025, and spark conflicts. We are running out something no one can live without.

According to the UN Commission on Water for 21s' century more than half of the world's major rivers are going dry or arc polluted. They are posing a threat to the health and livelihood of the people who depend upon them for irrigation, drinking and industrial water. Of the major rivers in the world the Amazon in South America and the Congo in the sub-Saharan Africa are the healthiest. The Yellow River in China is severely polluted. 90% of the flow of the Nile River is used for irrigation or is lost through evaporation from reservoirs and is polluted with the irrigation drainage and industrial and municipal waste when it reaches the Mediterranean Sea. The Amur's and the Syr Darya's flow into the Aral Sea in Asia has been reduced by three-quarters and has caused a catastrophic regression in the sea level. The sea is just a quarter of the size it was 50 years ago and has been split in two parts. Both halves suffer from increased salinity which dry into huge salt plains that cause dust storms and spread diseases and severely damage agriculture. Fishing has been wiped out, agriculture is closed to follow it.

Vocabulary

acid - кислотный

sanitation - улучшение санитарных условий escalate - наращивать, усиливать deteriorate - ухудшать(ся)

plague - надоедать, беспокоить scarcity - недостаток, дефицит competition - конкуренция

estimate - оценивать, подсчитывать приблизительно threat - угроза

64

evaporation - испарение

salinity - соленость

wipe out - зд. уничтожать

9.Answer the questions on the text:

1.How does the population growth contribute to worldwide demand for

water?

2.What countries and parts of the world face water scarcity? Why?

3.What are the differences in per capita water consumption between different countries?

4.Why are more than half of the world's major rivers posing a threat to the people?

10. Say if the following statements are true or false

1.Accessibility to safe water has become a major challenge to the world as fresh water supplies are stretched to meet the demands of the population, industries and agriculture.

2.Worldwide demand is getting twice as much every ten years.

3.Diseases due to unsafe water account for 60% of infections in the developing world.

4.An average American uses 1000 liters of water a day.

5.90% of the flow of the Nile River is used for irrigation or lost through evaporation from reservoirs.

6.The Aral Sea is three-quarters of the size it was 50 years ago.

11. Translate the sentences into English:

1. Спрос на воду во всём мире удваивается каждый 21 год, в не-

которых регионах - быстрее.

2. Имеющиеся запасы воды не могут соответствовать увеличи-

65

вающемуся спросу из-за роста численности населения, особенно в странах

третьего мира.

3.Болезни, передающиеся с водой, составляют 80% инфекционных заболеваний в развивающихся странах.

4.Недостаток питьевой воды может повлиять на 1/3 мира к 2025 году

истать причиной конфликтов.

5.Сток Амударьи и Сырдарьи в Аральское море сократился на три четверти, что вызвало катастрофическое понижение уровня моря.

12. Translate the text

Land Resources of Russia

The land fund of the Russian Federation has nearly 1710 million hectares. The average density of population - 8.6 person per square km. According to Food and Agricultural Organization reclamated lands occupy less than 20% of the territories.

The territory of the Russian Federation is characterized by specific features. In the first instance by heterogeneity of climatic and lithologic -and- geomorphological conditions, geological history. All that determines a wide variety of soils. More than one third of the territory of the Russia - mountain regions with well-defined vertical zoning. General features of mountain lands are stoniness and constant erosive processes.

On the whole the soils of Russia differ greatly. Alongside with highfertile soils there are poor, low-yield ones, as well as the soils requiring melioration.

Wide land zoning is well observed in the western part of Russia. Zoning of Eastern Siberia and the Far East is rather broken by a mountain relief. Bioclimatic conditions of land zones noticeably change from north to south. This fact determines subdivision of zones into sub-zones.

Polar and boreal soil formation is most typical of the territory of the

66

Russian Federation (the arctic, subarctic and taiga zones). Forming tundra, frozen taiga, podsolic and peatbog soils of these regions cover almost 40% of flat Russian territories. Wood zones of the sub-boreal belt occupying about 14% of flat territories of Russia are characterized by different kinds of podsolic, sodpodsolic soils, lesser by brown and grey wood ones. The subzones of southern taiga and mixed woods lands arc most agriculturally developed among all taiga territories. Agricultural lands occupy here 17.3% of total area including arable lands with about 10%.

More than 70% of the territories of the country arc hardly suitable for dwelling or agriculture. The most productive are the soils of forest-steppes and steppes of Russia. They cover more than 12% of all flat areas of the country. Grey wood soils, black earth soils and leach soils arc most distributed in this region.

Favorable soil and climatic conditions of the black earth zone predetermined intensive use of these lands. Today agricultural lands occupy more than 57% of forest-steppes (including arable lands - about 40%) and 73% of the steppe zone (arable lands - about 47%). The European part of the country has even higher percentage of agricultural lands, especially in Pre-Caucasian territories. 85-90% of some regions of this zone are agricultural lands. It is a principal grain-producing area of Russia.

Chestnut soils are more typical of dry steppes (about 1.3% of the Russian Federation territory). Agricultural lands occupy more than 85% of the territories including arable lands with 52%, and pastures - about 34%.

The zone of semideserts and deserts (0.9% of the Russian Federation) mainly consists of light chestnut and brown desert-steppe soils, mostly solonetzic, meadow-chestnut soils, saline lands and tracts of sand. Agriculture is possible only applying artificial irrigation

Vocabulary

density - плотность

67

reclamation - улучшение, мелиорация heterogeneity - разнородность vertical zoning - высотная поясность

wide land zoning - широтная зональность observe - наблюдать

peatbog - торфяник boreal - северный

sod-podsolie soils - дерново-подзолистые почвы leach - насыщенный раствор поваренной соли chestnut soils - каштановые почвы

saline - солончак

13. Answer the questions on the text

1.What determines a wide variety of soils in the Russian Federation?

2.What kinds of soils are the arctic, subarctic and taiga zones characterized by?

3.Where are the most productive soils spread?

4.Why is Pre-Caucasian region a principal grain-producing area of Russia?

5.What soils does the zone of semideserts and deserts consist of?

14. Translate the sentences into English:

1.Более 1/3 территории России занимают горы с чётко выраженной высотной поясностью.

2.Почвы России существенно различаются: наряду с высоко-

плодородными почвами распространены бедные, низкоурожайные, а

также почвы, нуждающиеся в мелиорации.

3.Широтная зональность в Восточной Сибири и на Дальнем Востоке нарушается горным рельефом.

4.Зона лесов умеренного пояса, занимающая почти 14% равнинной

68

территории России, характеризуется различными видами подзолистых, дерново-подзолистых почв, в меньшей степени - бурых и серых лесных.

5. Благоприятные почвенно-климатические условия зоны чернозёмов предопределили интенсивное использование этих земель.

15. Speak about the variety of land resources in Russia

Forest Resources Management

1. Discuss the text

Forests of the Earth

When an ax rings in some remote tropical forests or taiga, it strikes all too close to home. When the habitat half of the world's plant and animal species is destroyed at a rate of 50 acres every minute, we all pay the price. Forests have yielded precious medicines, food crop varieties and much more. They are habitat for many rare birds and other wildlife. And the lives of hundreds of millions of people depend on the forests for survival.

Large tracts of forest are of great importance for the global oxygen and carbon circulation. Their quantity influences greatly the radiation balance, the atmosphere circulation and moisture of the air, the water regime of the land. According to the existing estimations, during the Neolithic revolution and agriculture with cattle-breeding appearance, the forest covered 62 billion hectares of the land and with bushes and copse - 75 billion hectares, or 56% of its total surface. Within 10 thousand years of forest annihilation their total area shortened to 40 billion hectares and the average woodland - to 30%.

However, comparing these indices it should be taken into consideration that virgin forests occupy at present only 15 billion hectares — mainly in Russia, Canada, Amazonia. In the majority of the regions all or almost all virgin forests were replaced by the secondary ones, including planted forests. In our days the forest annihilation goes very fast: annually more than 20 million hectares arc annihilated.

69

Especially dangerous situation is in the zone of the tropical forests. According to the data of the UNO Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), in the middle of the 80s annually 11 million hectares and in the early 90s approximately 17 million hectares of forests were annihilated. As a result, for the last decade the area of the tropical forests has decreased to 20-30%. If the situation does not change, in half a century their final destruction will occur. Moreover, the tropical forests are cut down with the speed, which exceeds the speed of their natural restoration 15 times. Meanwhile, these forests are usually the lungs of the planet, they do have more than a half of all flora and fauna species represented on

2.Answer the questions on the text

1.How do people's lives depend on the forests for survival?

2.What happened to the forests within 10 thousand years of their annihilation?

3.Where can virgin forests be found?

4.Why is the situation in the zone of the tropical forests especially dangerous?

5.Why do we call the tropical forests "the lungs of the planet"?

3.Translate the sentences into English

1.Леса являются местом обитания многих редких птиц и разно-

образных диких животных.

2. Велика роль лесов в глобальной циркуляции кислорода и углерода.

На большей части территории все или почти все девственные леса были замещены вторичными, включая лесопосадки.

3. Если вырубка тропических лесов не прекратится, то через полвека они будут полностью уничтожены.

70