Throughout history, geography has affected the people that inhabit it. Geography has affected how people live, their culture, and their type of society. To make life easier, people have often altered the land they live on. Sometimes these changes can damage the land and the people that live there. There are several examples of societies changing the environment to benefit their lives. Two cases of this are the Chernobyl' accident and the draining of the Aral Sea.
The Chernobyl' nuclear power plant was built by the Soviet Union in the 1970's. It was built to provide electricity to about ten percent of the Ukraine. The building of the power plant had no large effects on the environment, but the incident that happened there had many. On April 26, 1986 there was a planned shutdown occurring at Chernobyl'. When reactor number 4 was at low power it became very unstable, after a sudden power surge the reactor was destroyed by two explosions.
English: Map of the watershed of the Syr Darya in ...
Aral Sea from space, 1997
Map: lake boundaries c. 1960 with present-day poli...A large hole was formed in the roof of the building. Radioactive debris escaped from the building and entered the atmosphere. The debris contaminated a lot of surface water and topsoil.
The radioactive debris that escaped from the hole in the plant had several effects on society. After the explosion, winds carried the radioactive particles northwest to Belorussia. Because of the explosion and the danger of the radioactive particles, many people had to be evacuated from their homes. It is estimated that over 200,000 people were evacuated because of the explosion. There were also many long lasting effects on society due to the exposure to the radio active particles. Many of the effects are controversial because they cannot be proved that they were due do the exposure of radiation. One effect that has been directly linked to the...