1/ This very good thread from @TomGiuretis highlights the vital role that the canals fed from the Dnipro play in the agriculture of southern Ukraine and Crimea. But I thought I'd add a historical perspective to how the canals changed life there. Tom Giuretis @TomGiuretis Jun 6
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1/ This very good thread from @TomGiuretis highlights the vital role that the canals fed from the Dnipro play in the agriculture of southern Ukraine and Crimea. But I thought I'd add a historical perspective to how the canals changed life there.
While the focus is rightly on the flooding downstream of the Kakhovka Dam, the long-term damage to Southern Ukraine's huge agricultural sector is particularly worrying. These farms and people rely on 4 canals that flow from the (soon to be former) Kakhovskyi Reservoir. A short
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2/ As Tom says, and I can attest as well having been there myself, it's a completely flat landscape of endless fields. It's watered by four major canals and innumerable side canals and irrigation channels. The Dnipro's water has made it a hugely productive farming region.
3/ That, however, is quite a recent development. The canals were only built between the 1950s and the 1980s by the Soviet Union. Before then, the region south of the Dnipro was a hot, arid, dusty plain with frequent droughts, dust storms and crop failures.
4/ This has had significant military consequences in the past. Russian armies under Prince Vasily Golitsyn attempted to invade the region in 1687 and 1689, but found their horses starving for the lack of any grass to eat. They retreated and lost 70,000 men in the process.
