SURFACE WATERS

SURFACE WATERS, waters permanently or temporarily located on the surface of the earth in the form of  various water bodies (swamps, reservoirs, glaciers, lakes, ponds, rivers,  snow  cover,  etc). They are referred to inexhaustible renewable water resources. The most part of the SW of the Republic are rivers. The territory of Bashkortostan belongs to the basins of rivers Volga (75% of the total area of the Republic), Ural (24%), Ob (1%). The largest density of the river network (0.60—0.80 km/km2) is typical for the basins of the rivers of the western slope of the Urals (rivers Zigan,  Zilim, Inzer,  Lemeza, Nugush, Seleuk, Sim, etc); the smallest (0.25—0.35 km/km2) is typical for Ufa Plateau (the Ai River) and Pribelsk rolling and wavy plain (rivers Dyoma, Karmasan, Sune, Urshak, Chermasan, etc). Swamps are mostly concentrated in the river valleys with wide floodplain. In the Republic there are more than 2.2 thous. lakes, distributed in the basins of rivers Belaya (73%), Dyoma (12%), Ufa (7%), etc. The most  regulated  are  the  flows of rivers Ashkadar, Urshak, Dyoma, Chermasan, Baza, Sune, Usen; less regulated are the tributaries of the Ural River, the upper reaches of the tributaries of the Belaya River.