Sevan-Hrasdan Cascade, a chain of seven power plants fed by water from Lake Sevan and the Hrasdan River. At the same time, urgently needed irrigation canals for agriculture were built. Moscow intensified [...] power plants, the construction of an almost 50-kilometre-long tunnel bringing water from the Arpa River began. In 1980, the Metsamor nuclear power plant went into operation. Nevertheless, the country remained

production of building materials. Therefore, especially in the heartland between the Pruth and Dniester rivers in today's Republic of Moldova, the conditions for industrialisation were poor and the population

continental border runs from the mountains of the Urals through western Kazakhstan along the Ural River to the Caspian Sea. Historically, the nomadic country, in whose soils lie an abundance of raw materials [...] help of foreign investors, the "black gold" was extracted on a large scale between the Ural and Emba rivers. Russia also became involved in railway construction - not least for strategic reasons: from 1904

toxins that collected in rivers and deposited on plants. While contemporaries had long been blind to air pollution, by the end of the 19th century the stench and discolouration of rivers and the damage to forestry [...] economic crises hampered research into environmental degradation, let alone the fight against it. In the rivers of Europe's mining and industrial regions, whether the Tawe in Wales, the Rio Tinto in Spain or the