307 Ángel Gómez de Ágreda Climate Change in the Arctic: Beyond the North Pole guaranteed access to drinking water and efficient means of communication along their banks to harness the energy provided by the fluvial currents. We have learnt from historical records that it was precisely in the proximities of the mouths of great rivers that some of the earliest cultures prospered. In this sense, the Nile was considered the father of the Egyptian Empire; Mesopotamia owes its name to its location between the great rivers of the Middle East, and China, the Empire of the Centre, built its nucleus basically between the lower courses of the Yang-Tsé and the Yellow rivers. The importance of internal connections An analysis of the US think-tank Stratfor on the inevitability of the American Empire9 starts from the premise that the competitive advantage achieved through its excellent fluvial and maritime communications confers on the United States the possibility of exploiting its resources more efficiently, and therefore trading with them from a position of pre-eminence. The basin of the river Mississippi and the rest of the intercostal waters of the US Atlantic coast constitute the largest network of navigable waterways in the world, that permit the reduction of operation and transport costs to a marginal fraction in comparison with their competitors10. Other relatively modern examples can be seen in the Rhein-Ruhr basin, in Germany. The concentration of industrial activity along the banks of both rivers and their tributaries is by far the greatest in Europe, a circumstance that appears to justify the thesis that awards major importance to rivers in the economic development of regions and their socio-political integration. Even so, not all rivers are –nor have they been- adequately utilised in this way. There are other circumstances that come into play and influence the degree to which waterways can be harnessed. One of the most important is undoubtedly the location of the mouth of the river current and its connectivity with distant markets. To give an example: the importance of the great Russian river in the European zone, the Volga, is substantially moderated by the fact that it flows towards the Caspian, an inland sea that provides scarcely any access to international markets. Until now the other great Russian rivers the Obi, the Yenisei, the Lena, and the Kolyma all, to a lesser extent, had similar constraints. All of them flow northwards and their basins cover a large part of the Siberian region, richly endowed in terms of the existence of natural resources. Nevertheless, various circumstances have impeded 9 http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-united-states-part-1-inevitable-empire y http:// www.stratfor.com/ analysis/geopolitics-united-states-part-2-american-identity-and-threats-tomorrow 10 http://www.stratfor.com/sites/default/files/main/images/US_transport_costs.jpg
REVISTA IEEE 3
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