Arthur H. Westing by Arthur H. Westing

Author:Arthur H. Westing
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg

6.4 The Lithosphere

Land covers almost 15 thousand million hectares (29 %) of the Earth’s surface. Almost 1.6 thousand million hectares of the land (11 % of the total land area) is continuously ice-covered, much of this represented by Antarctica. Perhaps 1800 million hectares (12 %) is desert. On another 800 million hectares (5 %) at least some stratum of the soil remains frozen the year round, a condition referred to as permafrost; and 200 million hectares or more (1.5 %) is accounted for by rugged mountain terrain. Much of the remaining 10,500 million hectares or so (71 %) of the land is found largely in the northern hemisphere and supports virtually the entire global population and its artifacts.

Successful manipulation of the land for hostile purposes would depend for the most part upon the ability to recognize and take advantage of local instabilities or pent-up energies, whether natural or anthropogenic. For example, some mountainous landforms are at least at certain times prone to landslides (soil and rock avalanches), and some arctic or alpine sites can be prone to snow avalanches; under the right conditions either could be initiated with hostile intent. The hostile manipulation of permafrost is taken up in Section 6.6 below. A number of important rivers flow through more than one country. This situation can provide the opportunity for an upstream nation to divert the waters of such a river so as to deny their use to a downstream nation. Natural levees or constructed dikes and dams (semi-permanent anthropogenic additions to the environment) could be destroyed to release the water contained behind them; and nuclear power stations or related facilities (further cultural artifacts that have become semi-permanent features of the environment) could be damaged so as to release their radioactive contents to the surroundings. More fanciful possibilities have also been mentioned, including the instigation of earthquakes in enemy territory or the awakening of similarly located quiescent volcanoes. A more detailed analysis of present and future capabilities regarding geospheric (tectonic) manipulations is provided elsewhere (Noltimier, 1984).

At certain times and places, appropriate military actions can bring about highly destructive floods. The most straightforward means of accomplishing this is to breach existing levees, dikes, or dams by one means or another. In a notable early instance, during the Franco–Dutch War of 1672–1678, the Dutch in June 1672 were partially successful in stopping the French from overrunning the Netherlands by cutting dikes to create the so-called Holland Water Line (Baxter, 1966, pp 72–73; Blok, 1907, pp 380–381). It might be added that this maneuver was carried out despite the vehement objections of the local inhabitants.

The Second Sino–Japanese War of 1937–1945 provides a far more devastating example of intentional military flooding (Westing, 1977, p. 54). In order to curtail the Japanese advance, the Chinese in June 1938 dynamited the Huayuankow dike of the Yellow River (Huang He) near Chengchow. This action resulted in the drowning of several thousand Japanese soldiers and stopped their advance into China along this front. In the process, however, the flood waters also ravaged major portions of Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces.

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