Water resources of the Komi Republic: their use in the past, present and future

The generalized characteristics of water resources in the territory of the Komi Republic, including river flow, lake waters and operational resources of fresh underground waters is given. Features of change across the territory are shown:a) density of a hydrographic network; b) changes of modules of annual runoff of the rivers and their average annual volumes when crossing the republic boundaries (more than 67% of this volume of the runoff falls on the Pechora river, in water content taking the third position among the rivers of Europe after Volga and Danube; c) changes of a minimum winter flow being the limiting factor when scheduling water management activity, including water supply.The main directions of use of a hydrographic network in the considered territory referring to basins of the Barents, White, Kara and Caspian seas, in the past and the present are shown. It is noted that from ancient times it, as an object of development of navigation, had great transport importance. The rivers were widely used for timber rafting, hydroelectric power stations operated on a number of small water currents last century. To date, volumes of navigation and timber rafting on the rivers are very limited.Till 1986 the draft diversion of part of runoff of the Pechora basin in the Caspian Sea with use of high-pressure reservoirs and the flooding of vast territories was considered. Scientists of the Republic of Komi convinced the government these plans to be non-perspective.However the question on the necessity of diversion of excess river flow from the Northern to the Southern slope of the European territory of Russia is not removed from the agenda. At the same time variants of diversion of the runoff, excluding flooding of territories, are supposed.